Summer Masterpiece
by GoodbyeCrimson
Summary: Deidara meets back up with his old friend Sasori at a summer art camp. The two also meet other intriguing characters like the origami master Konan, painter Sai, too talented for his own good Itachi and Sakura, the daughter of the camp's founder.
1. Reunited: Sasori's Journal

Summer Masterpiece

Chapter 1, Reunited

[Sasori's Journal]

To be frank, I wasn't all that sure what to do with my summer. I could pass my time studying, but there's only so much material one needs for high school that I fear I will become over educated if I continue reading as I have. After all, I'm always at the top of my classes.

"I'm going to art camp." I wasn't a topic to debate over, I had made up my mind and I was going. I stared at my grandmother for a second or two, but, anxious for a response repeated myself.

"Grandmother? _Grandmother_?!"

"Hohoho, don't worry, dear, I was only pretending to be dead."

"Well, good, then you heard me." I sighed.

"Do whatever you'd like, Sasori."

_I could've done extensive research into what Art camp would have been the best...but the only one close to here is that "Akatsuki" one. It's relatively new, but it's only half an hour away so it can't be too bad. _I thought as I stamped the letter for my enrollment and forged my Grandmother's signature on a check to the camp.

"A nice peaceful place to create and appreciate art... that's what I want."

**************

**BANG!**

I stood at what had been the entrance to the school, which looked almost like an expensive private one from the outside. Smoke rose up into my face and obscured my vision, the scent of charcoal and ash rising into my nostrils, bringing with it the memory of other scents as well. Vanilla bread, sunblock, clay. Even before the smoke cleared, I knew who I would find red-handed, the culprit to the short-lived case.

"Deidara." I stated.

"M-master?" There he was, just as I had remembered him, sunflower yellow hair and black rimmed eyes, one hidden behind a veil of his long hair.

"Deidara, why did you blow you the door to the camp?" I asked, kicking a piece of wooden that had been cast away in the explosion.

"I got here early, and I thought I should show these fools here what real art is, yeah." He gave me a wide grin. "But what in the world are you doing here, Master? I haven't seen you in..." I could tell he was trying to remember as his blue eye looked up at the sky, his eyebrow moving downward in thought.

"It's been a year." I told him. That's right, the two of us an been "friends" once, long ago. During hot and sticky summer days full of vanilla bread and chocolate ice cream and countless explosions. "And I came here because I have nothing better to do, and I wanted a nice, **serene** place to practice my art." I saw his face fall a bit at me empathizing the word serene.

"I guess you still haven't realized what true art is, yeah." Deidara nodded his head on the "yeah" part, as if he was agreeing with his own statement.

"Not this again." I rolled my eyes. "Come on, let's get inside before anyone comes and sees what you did to the door, I don't feel like being thrown out on my first day." I walked into the building, pushing past Deidara and looking around. I would have called it a nice place had their not been pieces of it's entrance scattered on the ground. The floors were wood, which seemed odd, be it most schools and public facilities use tiling or linoleum now a days. The whole place had a sort of old charm to it, made of faced red bricks and with clean, but worn wooden doors lining the hallway. _I can see myself getting used to this. _I smirked, walking forward as the hyper blond boy bounced behind me, rushing so as not to lose the friend he had just found.

Deidara was an odd one, wearing his long blond hair in a pony tail and painting his finger nails, yet trying to act tough whenever anyone insulted his "art work". He was cocky, immature, and thought a lot of himself.

"You know where you're going Master, yeah?" He asked me.

Well, for all the pride Deidara had, it astonished me he could bring himself to call me with such respect. _If he wants to call me master, let him._ That had been my view on the matter since the first time he had substituted my name with the honorable title.

"We should go to the office, we're early. We have to pick up our uniforms, find out what dorm we're staying in, and get out schedules. Didn't you think to do any of that?" I raised my eyebrow at the blond. Truthfully, it was a stupid question. This _was_ Deidara I was talking to, it was hard to believe he would think of anything before explosives.

Deidara looked away from me, as if the wall was more interesting than what I was saying. "Well, I just had art on my mind, yeah."

_I hope he's not mad at me now. It would be easier not to fight with someone like him... and it is easier if I know someone here, that gives me an excuse not to have to talk to other people... and I guess I shouldn't lose the only person I can call a friend._ I thought, deciding to try and reach out to moody boy. "Maybe we'll get dorm rooms together."

"That'd be great." Deidara beamed.

_Far from it, actually. He'd keep me up all night with his firecrackers and sparklers and whatever else he managed to fit in his luggage. _I thought, stepping into the office.

"Hello." A girl peered up at us, dusty pink hair framing her face. Her forehead was rather large, her eyes a shade of greenish blue. She looked around fifteen or sixteen, so it felt a tad odd to be spotting her sitting at the desk like a professional secretary. "My I help you?"

"We were wondering if we could get our schedules, uniforms, and room numbers. My name is Sasori Akasuna and this is Deidara..." I paused. "Deidara, what's your last name?"

"Does it matter? S'not like there are any other Deidara's here, yeah." Deidara shrugged.

"Right, your room numbers are room 17 for Sasori and 18 for Deidara." She told us.

I felt relieved, but I could see the disappointment on Deidara's face. "We'll have rooms next to each other, that's nice, right?" I gave him a smile, careful not to be overly generous.

"Yeah." He grinned.

"Your schedules should already be in your rooms waiting for you. If there's anything you need, just tell me." The girl at the desk smiled at us as we made our way out and up a flight of stairs.

"You look just the same as you did last year, you know, Master."

"Thank you." I wasn't sure whether he meant to compliment me, but didn't dwell on th subject.

"Let's compare our classes." Deidara suggested once we reached the dorms. They were long lines of rooms with wooden doors and rusted metal room numbers tacked on, the flooring full of scuffs from all the students that had walked the wall in the years pass. I counted fifty rooms, and assuming that this was the boy's dorm and that there were more rooms for girls on the other side of the building, came to the conclusion that at max there could only be a hundred students.

"Sure." I agreed with Deidara, "But why don't we see our rooms first?" Standing in front of my door I twisted the knob, revealing a modest, but suitable living arrangement. There were no windows in the room, but it wasn't something I particularly minded. It gave the cozy quarters an extra sense of privacy, something I knew I would end up craving after a few days of living in the public camp with other students. The bed was plain, a twin with white sheets and a firm looking pillow resting at an equally plain headboard. There was a manila folder laying on top of the the sheets, which I was pleased to see were not as old as the rest of the building. I took the folder in my hand, slipping the paper that was inside out and giving the room one last look, as if the paper was a curse and once I looked at it I would never be able to see the room again. In a way, It was. I knew Deidara wouldn't spend any time getting to know where he would be staying, and would run into my room at any moment.

There was a closet at the side of the room, the wood dark, a deep ebony that contrasted the light rosewood of the flooring. The walls were an off white, and I found myself wondering if Deidara's room too had an oddly out of place closet.

"Master Sasori!" I almost jumped at the sound of his voice behind me, _almost_.

"What is it, Deidara?" I played it off as if I had expected him to be there the whole time.

He held up the paper in his hand. God, he was predictable. I snatched it from his hand and held t against my own, reading down both lists at the same time.

basic pencil work 1. basic pencil work

woodworks2. sculpting

human anatomy3. pottery

Lunch 4. Lunch

painting 15. origami

still life6. painting 1

pastel works 7. pastel works

art study8. art study

"We have three classes together." I handed him his sheet back, "Block one pencil work, block seven pastel works, and block eight art study."

"We have block one together, yeah? That's great! We'll get to see each other first thing in the morning!"

_Great? You're the __**last**__ person I'd ever want to see first thing in the morning. _I thought, visions of the chatter box exploding anything he could get his hands on floating into my mind.

"We sure have some catching up to do." He smiled.

I let out a sigh, but returned the look. "Alright, how have you been?"

"Haven't gotten arrested yet, that's a plus, yeah?" He smirked.

"Deidara, how many illegal explosives or fireworks or _anything_ did you bring here?"

"Not enough."

I let out a chuckle. It seemed as though I had forgotten what worthy company the explosive artist was.


	2. Blue: Deidara's Journal

Chapter 2, Blue

[Deidara's Journal]

I couldn't say I liked the uniforms, yeah. Short sleeved white button-up shirts with plaid red ties and black pants that seemed to only draw in heat on the hot summer days.

_I doesn't matter. _I convinced myself, tyeing the the tie around my neck. _I can't believe my luck, meeting here with Master Sasori! I never I'd see him again after last summer... I can't let him get away this time, yeah. I want to stay friends with him, not just part ways when camp is over and risk never seeing him again. _I remembered the summer before, a summer that made me think of freaky, morbid looking puppets and the sound of my Master's irritated voice, accompanied by the sweep and call of seagulls overhead. Yet more than anything, it made me think of being able, for once, talk to someone. No, I correct myself, not talk, but be able to talk without someone looking at me like I'm stupid. Sure, he gave me tons of those looks for exploding his lunch one day and almost getting caught by the police the next, but never when I emptied my heart to him about my love for art. He was the one person who understood me, even if only a little bit.

"Class is going to start, hurry up or I'm leaving you!" I heard the most understanding person I had ever met threaten me through the door.

"C-coming!" I rushed as fast as I could, pulled the door open to see Master Sasori standing in the hallway, dressed in the same fashion as I was. I had my schedule folded and tucked away in one of my pockets, but I knew that Master Sasori was the kind of person who already had it memorized, yeah.

"Basic pencil work, yeah?"

"That's right."

The two of us had only taken a few steps from my door when we heard the voice of a third person.

"Oh, that's where I'm going too." Master Sasori and I both turned around to spot a girl with blue hair and a piercing below her lower lip. Her eyes had heavy shadow on them, a white, origami flower placed in her hair.

"You're a girl, yeah?" It seemed strange to me that a girl had apparently come from one of the rooms on the same hall as us, and I could tell Master Sasori thought it queer too.

"**Yes**." He blinked at me, her eyes narrowing.

"I'm sorry," I could tell Master Sasori was trying to make up for my rudeness, yeah. "It's just a little surprising to see a girl in the boy's dormitory."

"There's only one set of rooms and this is it." The girl told us.

"Oh." It really made no different to me if there was one set of rooms or two. I had no interest in woman either way.

"Well, we should get going." Master Sasori turned and continued walking, the blue haired girl coming up to stand on the other side of him.

_Master Sasori sure is quick to make friends... he told me he didn't have any when we first met last summer, but I don't see how if so many people are flocking towards him. _

I kept glancing over at the girl, but she didn't seem to be looking at Master Sasori at all, just looking straight ahead of herself as she walked. In fact, she hadn't even asked his name or given hers. At the time I couldn't understand why, but this gave me a sense of relief.

We all walked down the stairs, which seemed so old they could decay at any moment. _I hate this place, it's so old! I should blast these stairs away and renovate them..._ I thought, considering how many explosives I'd need to blow up the stairway.

We reached the room after only a minute or so, and Master Sasori reached forward and pulled it open, me and the blue haired girl following in after him. There weren't many people in the room, a teacher at the front, waiting for all the students to get in, and a black haired boy sitting at a desk. The desks were all old, some with things engraved in them, random tidbits from people's pasts like "_Sasuke and Naruto 4evr_" and "_Choji is Fat_".

If I hadn't known better, I would have said that the room looked more akin to a classroom than a place to create art. The desks were lined in formal rows, a dark green chalk board at the front of the class, the windows with their shades pulled up revealing the scene of the summer's first partly cloudy day.

Master Sasori didn't stop to take in the room, but went to a desk and sat in it, second row from front third to the right. The girl took a seat on his right, so I had no choice by to take a seat on his left, right behind the black haired boy.

"What do you think we'll draw today, hm?"

"I'm not sure" said Master Sasori.

A few minutes pass in almost total silence, no one saying anything to one another as the minutes ticked by, a few more students funneling into the room. There was an agitated looking teenager with slicked back white hair and pinkish/lavender colored eyes who almost ripped the door off it's hinges coming in a sat in the back corner of the room, muttering something about how "it was f-ing ridiculous that his parents had forced him to come to an art camp so he could learn to do some retarded peaceful shit".

_If he's talking like that maybe it was a good thing his parents sent him here. There's one person who I bet doesn't understand a thing about true art. _I thought.

The other cast included a girl with long blond hair pulled back in a pony tail and a boy leaning on her shoulder as if she had just pulled him from bed by force.

"That's everyone, we should begin now." The teacher told us.

_That's everyone? _I glanced around at the hand full of people, _There has to be more, yeah?_

The class droned on, the teacher explaining various things to us, but spending the largest amount of time on dictating to us the difference between "F" pencils and "H" pencils. _I thought there were only number two pencils and number three pencils._ I thought, making sure to take notes on everything as much as the class bored me.

"Sculpting." I read from the sheet that had been in my pocket.

"I'll see you later than, Deidara." Master Sasori waved, leaving me behind once the class had ended. I stood up, exiting the class and going the opposite way my master had.

It seemed like all the classes would just be talking about the most simplistic basics today, yeah, because sculpting class was just the teacher yapping about the different tools that could be used for sculpting. Thing I already knew, yeah.

I walked out of the class, wishing for even the tiniest bit of excitement, or at least to see Master Sasori again. I nearly jumped at the pressure of a hand on my shoulder, no, I _did_ jump. I turned to see the blue haired teenager behind me, a smirk on her glossy lips when she saw that she had caught me off guard.

"You dropped this." She told me, holding out one of her hands, her nails long and painted, a detail I missed earlier. In the palm of her outstretched hand was a slip of folded paper.

"Thanks." I took it from her, shoving it in my pocket.

"My name's Konan." She introduced herself at last.

"I'm Deidara."

"And that person with you before?" She asked.

_I knew it! She's after Master Sasori!! _"That's Master Sasori."

"Master?" The girl who had introduced herself as Konan raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah."

"So you two must know each other pretty well."

I thought about what she had said for a moment. I never considered myself to know Master Sasori very well, I didn't think anyone really knew him that well, I just happened to know him a better than other people. "I guess."

"I'll see you later, Deidara." Konan waved, walking into another classroom.

I wasn't sure how to feel about Konan. She hadn't been rude, and she had come to the camp, so it was safe to assume that even if she didn't known what _true_ art is that I should respect her as a fellow artist, yeah. That aside, I didn't want her trying to get closer with Master Sasori. He was my friend, and I didn't want to lose him. I found myself wondering if Master Sasori would listen to that corny line "_bros before hoes_" or if he would abandon be at his first chance of getting a chance with a girl like Konan.

_I'm sure it's fine. I just can't be too judgmental of her, yeah. Maybe she'll be able to understand my art, she can't be a horrible person, and as a fellow artist, I have to give her a chance. _I sat down in my next class, reaching into my pocket and pulling out my schedule to make sure I was in the right place. _She picked up my schedule for me, too. I'm not sure what I would've done if I had lost this, yeah. _Having confirmed I was in the right location I folded the paper back and shoved it in my left pocket, noting as I did so that there was a slip of paper sticking out of my right pocket. The right pocket, the one I had put the paper Konan had given me in. If my schedule was in my left pocket, what was it that she had given me?

Seeking the answer, I pulled the paper out and unfolded it, my eyes scrolling up and down the paper five times before I allowed it to sink in. _W-what is this?_ After a moment I realized what it was the paper had contained-the paper that was completely blank without a single mark on it.

It had contained an excuse to talk to me, yeah.


	3. Accidental: Sasori's Journal

Chapter 3, Accidental

[Sasori's Journal]

When lunch time finally came, the room seemed too big for all of the people trying to squeeze into it. The tables looked like they had been stolen from a picnic, all constructed from heavy slabs of wood with large cracks running through them. Even the dinning room had wooden floors, and I had come to except that the entire building would be made up of such flooring. At max, there had to be seventeen different tables to fit the forty students that had enrolled in the summer art camp. At the same time, it appeared I had been lucky to snag a friend, because few others seemed to want to sit with each other. _Maybe all artistic people have trouble making friends. _I thought with mild interest, waiting impatiently for my ditsy blond companion to show up.

_If he doesn't show up soon, I'm going to refuse to talk to him tonight. That'll serve him right. He'll probably explode if he doesn't have someone to listen to his rants, then again, if he exploded, he'd end up deriving pleasure from that, too. _I thought. I got up from the table an walked to get some lunch, grabbing a sandwich which, compared to the food usually served at my high school, seemed first class.

I spared a glance over at the person next to me, the blue haired girl who had walked to period one with me and Deidara. Even as she picked up a blueberry jelly filled sandwich for herself, it seemed she did so with elegance, her hand slowly grasping the meal, her painted nails flashing out against the oatmeal brown color of the sandwich bread. I saw her eyes dart up and meet with mine, her eyes which were shadowed by lines covered with cornflower blue makeup that matched the color of her well maintained hair. Her eyes were narrower than most, narrower than Deidara's wide, almond shaped eyes, for starters. The girl's body was all in ideal proportion, the kind of model most artists dream of, and the short black skirt that she wore as part of the camp's uniform helped to show it off.

_I'd like to crave a puppet of her. _I thought, wondering if she'd respect the wish, her being an artist as well.

"I thought you'd be the jelly type." She chuckled, spotting the peanut butter sandwich that I held in my hand. "I guess life is full of surprises."

I smiled at her and nodded, as she got out of line and walked away to an abandoned picnic table and sat by her lonesome. _I don't know what it is, but the way she said that last sentence...it's as if she meant something else by it, like she was hinting at something. I wonder if she plans to do something to me...? Does she plan to pull a prank on me? Is that what she meant? _I strolled calmly back to my table, not letting the confusion show on my face.

"I've been looking for you, Master!" I turned to see Deidara, a look of relieve on his lively face. "I didn't know where you would sit, but I figured you'd gotten here before me, so I was just waiting to find you, yeah."

"I was in the lunch line, where you _should_ be." I told him.

"Oh, well... if I go now, I'll have less lunch time, yeah." He deduced, sitting across from me.

"If you don't get lunch, it's not much of a "lunch time"." I raised my eyebrows at him, knowing full well that the only reason he wasn't getting lunch was because he'd rather spend time talking to me. "Here, have half of my sandwich." I took half of the peanut butter sandwich and handed it to him, how took it with great thanks.

"Hey, Deidara," I began as he chowed down. "do I look like a jelly person to you?"

"No, Master, you look like a flesh and blood and bones person." Deidara chuckled, clearly missing the point.

"I mean do I look like the kind of person who would eat a jelly sandwich?"

Deidara cocked his head to one side, peering at me from his visible eye and placing the half of a peanut butter sandwich down on the table so he could focus. "You do, yeah."

"Why? Is that a bad thing?" I sought my answers.

"That's what I should be asking you! Why do you care so much?" Deidara gave me more questions.

I wondered if telling him would be the right thing to do. Knowing him, he was likely to over react or take it as an insult and try and blow up the blue haired girl's room. As far as I was concerned, it was still a little too early for any major disasters. Chances were, she was just trying to make conversation. I didn't need to look into everything so deeply, and it was enough for me to dwell on something so minor, getting Deidara involved would make me a fool almost as big as he was.

"No." It was the only answered he was going to get out of me on the topic.

I finished my half of the sandwich around the same time Deidara did, both of us sitting at the table and talking about how our classes had gone, which was a pretty mild conversation be it that almost all the classes had gone through the same run of the mill explanation of what to expect speeches and how to use tools dictations.

My eyes wandered around the room, looking at the other camp members. I was bound to have them all in at least one of my classes, with the low number of them. The blue haired girl was still sitting alone, her back to my table, it appeared she was fiddling with something out of my view. At further away tables there was a foul mouthed teenager with slicked back white hair, the same one I was unfortunate enough to have in my basic pencil work class. He looked just as disgruntled as he had hours ago in period one. Across from that table was one with a lazy looking boy sleeping, his head down on the table as a a blond haired girl talked his ear off.

_That blond looks like Deidara... exactly like him..._ I noticed in amazement at discovering Deidara's twin. Her hair was in a pony, two pink berets holding some of it back. One wide seawater blue eye was exposed, another hidden behind a long cloak of hair over the right side of her face. I saw the boy seem to grumble a response to her as she kept yapping on and on. _Acts like him, too...I wonder how mad he'll get if I tell him he looks like a girl...? _Figuring it was a conversation better saved for later I went on with my surveillance.

There was a black haired boy sitting alone at a table with a scroll in front of him, painting a picture that I couldn't make out from my distance. He was the palest person I had ever laid eyes on, his skin sheet white like fresh snow, and his stark black hair didn't help to make him look any less pale.

There was a teenager with long black hair in a pony tail sitting in deep thought and a boy sitting by himself wearing a swirly, pumpkin orange mask, looking depressed and playing with the food that was in front of him. Most of the people who sat alone looked like they had intended it to be that way, yet the boy with the mask and spiky black hair seemed like he wished someone would walk up and talk to him. Had I been a kinder person, perhaps I would have.

The room contained others, yet none as memorable. "I have painting next."

"Origami for me." Deidara told me. "I joined the class because I thought it would be pretty awesome if I could make a bunch of origami birds and get them to explode, yeah."

Me and Deidara spilt up and I entered a new room. Easels and stools formed a ring in the room, the center hollow but for an additional set of easel and stool. I was the first student in the room, sitting down at an easel and looking up at the teacher, a woman with large glasses that magnified her buggy eyes. Her ginger hair hung around her body in a wispy fashion, like feathers flowing from her head.

"What's your name, dear?"

_Dear? I preferred being called master by Deidara..._ I thought at the sound of the undermining nickname. "It's Sasori Akasuna." I answered regardless.

"Ah, lovely, lovely. You can start whenever you'd like. For our first class, you can just vent you emotions and get used to the feel of using paint. Next class we'll upgrade to painting and a lesson and so on."

The teacher handed me a set of paints and a brush as more students walked in, incuding the blond haired girl and her brown haired boy-toy and the foulmouthed one with the slicked back hair. When the teacher asked them their names I overheard them, committing them to memory. _Ino, Shikamaru, and Hidan. _

"My name is Sakura Haruno." I looked up from my canvas, eying the girl who had walked in, her petal pink hair falling to her chin as she took a seat next to mine, which put her next to the Deidara-look-alike named Ino as well.

"Don't you work in the office?" I couldn't help but ask as she pulled out her brush and began to swirl it into a circle of rose paint.

"Oh, yes." She smiled as she looked up at me. "My farther owns this camp, so I stay at the front desk sometimes to help him out when the secretary is absent or on break." It made enough sense. "I'm not that good at art, but since my father owns this place I got to come her for free, and I figured it was better than staying at home and doing nothing."

"She messed with the schedules so that me and Shikamaru have every class together, too! Sakura is the best." Ino giggled.

"Don't mine them, that's just my friend Ino-Pig and lazy bones Shikamaru."

I nodded, going back to my canvas and painting a red flower on it in the left corner.

"Oh my goodness!" Sakura shrieked as I felt some wet hit my chest and slowly drip off. I looked down at the ground, Sakura's paint pallet of olive drab and peony pinks laying on the ground, my white shirt splattered with the dripping wet pigments.

"I'm so sorry!" Sakura's hand had flown to her mouth. "It's all Ino's fault for trying to take my pallet away from me!"

"It wouldn't have hit him if you just let me borrow your stupid green, billboard brow!"  
Sakura scowled at Ino, but seemed to concerned about me to carry on the argument. "Here, come with me and I'll get you a new shirt. Teacher! I'm going to go get Sasori a new shirt!" I didn't have time to think weather I should protest or not, because the small pink haired girl had grabbed my arm and was pulling me out of the art room. _Being the daughter of the owner... seems like she has a lot of power here. _I thought.

"There are some more shirts in the office, it should be empty right now but I have a key." She explained as we hurried down the hallway.

_She has a suitable body for a model, too. A shorter than the blue haired girl, but her waist size and hips are around the same amount. _I thought, not all that worried about the paint that she had splattered on me. I would get a new shirt, and I wasn't missing anything important, anyway.

She unlocked the office door to enter the room that was full of plants and flowers in decorative pots and vases. I figured she had to have been the one to decide upon that. She bent over, reaching into the desk for what I assumed to be a replacement teeshirt in front of me.

_It really is a nice figure. _I watched her as she fumbled in her draws, finally coming back up with a handful of white clothing.

"Which one of these looks like your size?"

"I don't know. Don't they have size tags on them?"

"No... they came in boxes with the sizing on them, but when I came in this morning the boxes were gone. I think the other secretary threw the boxes away and didn't think anyone would need any more."

I looked at the white shirts she held in her hands, trying to decide which one would fit the best.

"I guess you'll just have to try them on." Sakura sighed. "First off, you should take that one off."

"Alright." I began to unbutton my shirt, feeling awkward in the foreign situation. I had gone swimming with Deidara once, but I wasn't a big fan of the water. Taking my shirt off in the tiny room Sakura watched seemed almost degrading, even given the circumstance. I handed her my shirt, hoping that I could keep myself from blushing as I stood for the first time in my life half-naked before a girl, all alone with a believable excuse to get out of class.

She took the shirt from me but threw it in the trash can next to as quickly as it has been given to her. "Try this one." She suggested, holding one out to me.

"It seems a little big." I told her once I had it on, lifting my arm to display all the excess fabric.

"You're right." She nodded, picking up a smaller size. "You know, you're awfully skinny, Sasori."

"Thank you?"

"It's not a bad thing, just an observation." Sakura waved her hands around, worried she had offended me.

"It's find." I chuckled.

"Here, let me help you with that." Sakura stepped forward, using her plain, yet long nails to undo the first button on the large shirt. She was close to me, closer than I normally like people to get. She continued working down the rows of buttons, pooping them out as I finally subsided to my blush, filling my face go red as the teenage girl undressed me.

"OK, try this on." She stepped back from me, handing me a new shirt.

"Thank you, this one fits well." I said once I had put it on.

"No problem, it was my fault. By the way, my name is Sakura." She smiled.

"Yeah, I overheard it earlier."

"I hope this won't get in the way of us having a good friendship." She grinned.

"Don't worry about it." I turned walking back to the class with the pink haired teenager.


	4. Grudge: Deidara's Journal

Chapter 4, Grudge

[Deidara's Journal]

Master Sasori's room wasn't much different than my own, yeah. Except for the fact that it lacked a window, which I thought must have drove him crazy. Without a few of the sky, I begin to feel so trapped and closed in, I wonder if Master Sasori felt like that, too. I'm not much of a morning person, but on the few chances I do awake early, there's nothing better than looking out to the rising sun. It's almost like an explosion of colors on the horizon, the reds and oranges and lavenders all dancing and mingling in with one another. That morning I didn't get such a chance. I woke up to a bright, blue sky and white, scattered, puffy clouds floating peacefully by. The view of the landscape from my window was nice, yeah. A small garden that reached around the back of the building, crimson red roses sprouting from lush, thriving brushes. The camp, camp "Akatsuki", was located away from the industrial city that I lived in, the green of the grass rolling on and on outside my open window.

_Master Sasori told me that he came to this camp because it was closet to his house. I wonder if he lives in a small town where there are wide open plains all around...?_ I thought with a yawn, forcing myself out of bed and into my uniform.

"Hey Master Sasori." I greeted, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes as I opened the door.

"I was just about to go get breakfast." He told me.

"Without me? You're cruel, yeah!"

"I waited for awhile..." He tried to justify his actions.

"It's only seven!"

"Class starts at eight, if you want breakfast, you have to get up early."

I sighed, knowing that I couldn't talk him out of his logic, yeah. I replaced my groggy expression with a smirk. "What are you going to have for breakfast? A jelly sandwich?"

"You're not going to let that go, are you?" He chuckled, the two of us walking side by side down the hallway.

"Nope." I laughed.

"Oh, good morning Sasori, Deidara." The two of us stopped and turned around at the sound of a girl's voice behind us.

_I hope it's not Konan..._ I thought in the back of my mind. I hadn't been able to get the strange haired girl out of my mind, yeah. She must've liked Master Sasori a lot, handing me the plank piece of paper as a means to start a conversation. I couldn't see why she liked him so much. She didn't even _know_ him!_I bet she's just some shallow girl who wants to get in his pants, yeah. _I thought. _I'm not going to overreact, though. I'm just going to pretend like nothing happened. Maybe it's just an accident. Maybe she's not some sort of slut... there's no saying whether she is or isn't yet... can't jump to conclusions... yeah...._

"Good morning, Sakura."Master Sasori gave her a polite smile.

_Sakura? _The girl's hair was strange, no doubt, but she wasn't the blue haired harlot from the day before. Her hair was creamy pink, her eyes a warm bluish shade of green. _She looks familiar... Where have I seen her before...? Oh yeah... wasn't she the girl at the front desk the day we came here?_

"How's the knew shirt working for you?" She skipped a few steps so that she stood next to Master Sasori.

"Just fine, thank you."

"New shirt?" I looked from Master Sasori to the girl next to him.

"Sakura accidentally tossed some paint on me the other day and had to get me a replacement for my old one." My master retold the chain of events. I eyed the girl, who looked innocent enough. I couldn't picture her going after Master Sasori or having splashed him with paint on purpose, so as far as I was concerned, I approved of her.

"Would you guys like to have breakfast with me and Ino?" She offered.

"What about Shikamaru?" Sasori asked.

_How does he know so many people? I thought I was Master Sasori's only friend... did he really end up making more from just the first day of classes?_

"He's not a morning person." Sakura giggled. "Actually, he's not really a waking-up-at-all person."

Master Sasori smiled at the girl's joke, agreeing for both of us to sit with her. We sat down in the dinning room, my eyes wandering from Master Sasori to the table where Konan sat, eating a piece of toast quietly, yeah.

"Deidara? Deidara!" Master Sasori shook my shoulder.

"Hm, what is it?" I looked away from Konan, focusing back on the group in front of me, comprised of myself, Master Sasori, Sakura, and a blond girl I assumed to be Ino.

"I asked if you wanted my other piece of toast, I'm not hungry." Master repeated himself.

"Oh. Sure." I took it from him.

"Don't you think they look alike?" Master Sasori smirked at Sakura, who sat across from him, yeah.

"It's uncanny!" Sakura giggled in reply.

"What are they talking about?" Ino looked dead at me, expecting me to supply her with an answer.

"I don't know." I shrugged. I ended up not figuring out what they had been speaking of, and soon enough I was back sitting in my my basic pencil work class, sitting next to Master Sasori and the new addition to the class, Sakura. _If Sakura sits next to Master Sasori, Konan won't be able to, yeah. _I took satisfaction in my discovery. I watched as the blue haired teenager walked in, my eyes fixed on hers as they blinked, glued to the seat that Sakura was sitting in. I saw her walking towards me, and began to wonder if she was going to throw me out of my seat to sit with Master Sasori.

Instead of the sound of the punk girl pounding my face in, I heard the gentle scuffing of a chair being pulled out, Konan taking the empty seat next to me. "Morning Deidara." She smiled.

_Is this reverse psychology? Why is she being nice to me? Shouldn't she be angry with me for letting someone else other than her sit next to Master Sasori? _My mind was racing.

"Hello." It was all I said to her, the teacher clearing his throat and starting class.

We were all given pieces of paper and told to shade in a circle. _Easy enough. _I thought, taking the pencil in my hand and beginning to draw.

"Your circle is almost perfect." I overheard Sakura tell Master Sasori. "They say that being able to draw a prefect circle without using any tools or anything to aid you is a sign of insanity."

Master Sasori chuckled. "Then it's likely I'm insane."

I spared a look over at Master Sasori's perfect circle, and then at Sakura's paper, which caused me to wonder if she had even tried to make the squiggly shape on her paper look like a circle. "Well you're far from insanity, yeah, Sakura." I laughed.

Sakura pouted. "You're a jerk, Deidara, yours isn't much better!" I thought it was, even if it wasn't perfect like Master Sasori's.

"Wow, yours is good, yeah." Shoot. I had talked to her. I hadn't meant to, but the words slipped out of my mouth when I saw Konan's circle. _No surprise, I figured she might be insane._ I joked to myself.

"I traced." She smiled, holding up a a circle cut out of paper.

"You carry circular pieces of paper around with you a lot, yeah?" I raised an eyebrow.

"No." She giggled, unfolding the circle to reveal a piece of crinkled notepaper. "I just made it into a circle when I heard that's what we had to do."

On one hand, it seemed like Konan was a very resourceful person, yet on the other I felt bitter about it, like she had cheated on a test, yeah.

I began to shade my circle, yet it seemed like none of the people in my row were very seasoned in shading. I saw Master Sasori's brow furrow as he erased the marks on his paper and made knew ones, not used to having to repetitively attempt to draw the same thing. Master usually got the look he was going for on the first shot, yeah. Sakura looked content with hers, but I have no clue why, because it looked like a solid shade of gray to me. Ino's was better, but not by much, and Shikamaru hadn't even picked up his pencil. Konan's was alright, but it was nothing special. Kind of like her, yeah.

I watched as the teacher took the paper of the black haired boy in front of me, and wondered if he had caught him doodling something obscene or writing profanity. To my surprise, the teacher took the picture and clicked it to the black board, a shaded circle better than any I had even seen on display. _That boy's skilled with shading and pencil work, yeah. _I had gained a grain of respect for the person in front of me, even if it wasn't much. The teacher took another piece of paper and tacked it to the board, this one coming from a boy towards the back with long black hair and narrow eyes. His was almost as good as the first teenager's, both far beyond my capacity with pencils.

With basic pencil work over, I was on my way to sculpting. _I'm going to be the most skilled in this class, yeah._ I was confident in my abilities as I strolled in the glass room with it's large, thick wooden tables that would seat three people at a time and still give everyone enough room to be as messy with the clay as they liked.

I spotted a few familiar faces, the teenager with long black hair and the boy with a swirly looking orange mask. The class was relativity small, tinier than my other classes, even, but I didn't mind it. The teacher's assignment to us was simple, make a piece of fruit out of the clay she provided.

_Fruit? I guess I'll make an apple, yeah. _I decided, sitting down at a table and picking up the wet clay.

"What are you making?" I looked up to see that, despite the amount of tables in the room and lack of students to fill all of them, the boy with the mask had chosen to sit with me rather than by himself.

"An apple." I smirked.

"Really? You look more like a banana type of person."

"What's the supposed to mean?" I narrowed my eyes at him. _I wonder if it's as bad as a jelly type of person... I still don't get why Master Sasori was so concerned about that, yeah._

"It means that you look like a banana person." His voice was light hearted, like he was joking around with an old friend. I wondered how he could act so friendly to me when he didn't even know my name, yeah. I saw him mess with his clay, shaping it into a lopsided banana and using his finger to imprint the image of a single dot eye and a smiley face. "See?" He held it up to me.

"You're horrible." I told him, placing my perfectly shaped apple down on the table.

"Wow, you're amazing!" He ignored my insult. "That's so good, Sir!"

"Sir?" I raised an eyebrow. "My name is Deidara."

"OK, Deidara Sir." I could tell the kid was grinning behind his mask, and half considered ripping it off his face.

_He seems obnoxious, but I guess I can't dislike him entirely, even if he is bad at art he has the decency to recognize quality art when he sees it, yeah. _I thought, "Alright, what's your name?"

"Tobi." He sounded almost excited when he introduced himself, and I got the feeling the mysterious masked kid didn't have many friends.

"That's ace work you've done, Deidara." The teacher praised me as she walked past, looking over at Tobi's banana as if she was considering the likely hood of him being legally retarded. The instructor picked up my clay apple and brought it to the front of the class, putting it on the head table so that everyone could see what perfection is.

"Hey, look, Sir, that one's really good!" I looked to where Tobi was pointing, a second fruit being played next to mine. A vine of grapes, each smooth and the exact same size as if they had been made by some grape making machine. The leaves were detailed, the veins running through them clearly and each a unique, slightly different shape.

"Excellent work today, Itachi, Deidara." The teacher complimented. I turned my head, looking over at the first person that she had mentioned. Itachi, the teenager with dark, narrow eyes and long black hair. He glanced up at me with his cold eyes, locking on to my blues ones as he looked half interest, like he knew he was better than me and I was just some kid challenging him. _Just you wait, Itachi, once I find out what your room number is you won't be able to act so arrogant._


	5. Crush: Sakura's Diary

[author's note: This chapter is based around Sakura, but don't worry, there will be some boy-on-boy action coming up real soon (in the 6~7 chapter), so just hold on tight!;]

Chapter 5, Crush

[Sakura's Diary]

I was the second in the lunchroom out of everyone that I sat with that day. The lunch room was nothing strange to me, the sights of the summer art camp were images I knew inside out. The place was old, older than my age and my father's combined. I didn't see how the place hadn't fallen apart, yet the antique camp stayed standing for years, for as long as I can remember. When I was six, my father bought the then vintage old school building, and for reasons beyond my understanding, turned it into a getaway and place of learning for starving young artists. The people that came to the camp were always different, yet always the same. Being so small, only around forty to fifty teenagers would come, and out of that amount a good thirty of them would be outcasts. Colored hair, heavy eyeliner, strange piercings akin to the labret below Konan's lower lip... They were all different from the majority of society, yet always the same as one another. All uniquely the same and blandly different. One of the things they usually shared was a contempt for sitting with others, though I had seen in my years of walking the halls of the camp a few stray members who would team up and become inseparable.

In all this sameness, there was Sasori, the one person who had beaten me to the table, sitting there with an almost irritated look in his amber eyes, a jelly sandwich in one of his hands and a carton of milk in the other.

Sasori was just different. I had already witnessed that in our woodworks class. He was cold, but not cruel. He wasn't the kind of person who would push people away, even if that's what he really wanted to do. Sasori wasn't some radical rebel punk trying to prove something, he was just talented and had a passion for his art. The way he ranked his art above all else, the way he remained calm and collected... I couldn't help but admire those traits.

I blushed a little as I approached him, sitting down across from him at the wooden picnic tables that had already been in the once-a-school camp when my father bought it.

_I just can't get woodworks out of my head..._ I recalled the class as those keen, narrow eyes lost some of there edge and stared back at me.

********

"I didn't expect you to take this kind of class." Sasori told me as he, Shikamaru, Ino, and I strolled down the hallway together.

"Well, I've come here a lot over the years, and I never took woodworks, so I figured I should give it a try for once. I want to see if I can get good at it and make a new dresser for my room." I told him with a smile.

"And that means we got dragged along too." Ino groaned, putting a hand on Shikamaru's shoulder.

"You wanted to have all the same classes as me, you chose this!" I argued.

"You're both so noisy..." Shikamaru whined. That's all he ever did after all: whine.

We walked in the class, Sasori sitting next to me and Ino and Shikamaru on my other side as I nervously looked at all the saws and tools that would be used for the class.

"Today we'll be practicing something simple." The instructor, a built man named Mr. McDowell with a black mustache that grew a little bigger each summer told the class. "You'll be making a box. All you have to do is cut out the pieces of wood to be the size you need them too and nail them together. Make sure to use the safety gloves and goggles."

Knowing I was bound to mess up, not ever having much luck with anything at the art academy, I pulled on a pair of thick, rubbery, orange gloves and strapped the clear goggles over my weary green eyes. I saw Ino cringe at the thought of having to wear the equipment, but Shikamaru did a good job convincing the fashion queen to lay her pride aside for the sake of her safety.

Sasori had already gotten to work on his box, wasting no time as he used one of the saws to hack away the unnecessary pieces for his artistic vision.

Slowly I grabbed my own saw, taking a deep breath and preparing to slice into my own wood. _OK, you can do this Sakura. This is where you show your stuff, cha!_

The electric saw began to eat away at the board as I held it in place, watching as chips of wood flew off and around my work area.

"Sakura, do I look stupid to you?" Ino asked, tapping the goggles Shikamaru had convinced her to wear.

"Don't second guess Shikamaru, you know how smart he is." I laughed, diverted my eyes from the board and over to a pouting Ino and the worn out Shikamaru behind her.

"Sakura!" I felt my arm jerk backward, clasped tightly by the owner of the urgent sounding voice. I looked over, Sasori's teal nails fixed firmly around my left arm, a relieved yet somehow stressed out look on his face. It was the kind of face a parent makes when they find that their child hadn't been kidnapped, but rather playing in the backyard; it was a mixture of passing worry yet irritation and tension from having had to worry in the first place.

"S-Sasori?" I knew I could pull my arm away from him, I had never met anyone stronger than myself and I didn't think the skinny redhead would be the one to change that, but I let him clutch my arm like he was afraid I was going to do something stupid with it or that it would fly away the second he loosened his grip.

"You almost lost our hand there, Sakura, you have to watch what you're doing." He released me, by heart skipping a beat as my arm fell back to my side.

"I'm sorry." I felt like a little kid that had been caught doing something wrong by her parents, but at the same time I felt my face fluster slightly from the feeling of his hand on my arm.

"It's fine." He insisted. "Just don't hurt yourself." He turned back to his work, done using the dangerous saw and on to wielding a small craving knife, digging away details into his box with great care, his eyes fixed on it intently. I wondered how he could've caught the fact that I had almost let the saw cut my hand with the way he was so focused.

"You're really good with wood. Oh, I didn't mean to be funny, that wasn't supposed to rhyme." I giggled awkwardly as I peered over at his box. _This is bad, why can't I think straight now? I'm just acting weird..._ I thought was a worried gulp.

"Thank you." He said without looking up from his box. By the end of class Shikamaru and Ino had both made presentable boxes, and even mine wasn't half bad. It was Sasori's that was truly impressive, and made me wonder how he could have made it from the same planks of wood the rest of us did. It had three separate draws and the kanji for scorpion carved into the top.

"Scorpion?"

"My name." He explained.

"You know, you're really skilled." I told him as we both walked out of the class. "I've never seen anything like it. You're so dedicated to your art, I can tell just by the way you looked at it as you worked." I didn't want him to feel like I was glorifying him, but it was how I genuinely felt.

"Thank you, Sakura." He smiled, his amber eyes suddenly looking just ever so slightly warm; or maybe it was my wishful imagination perceived them that way.

*******

My mind returned to the lunch table as I desperately tried to focus on _**not**_ focusing on him.

"Took you awhile to get here." He told me. "But at least you're here before Deidara." I heard a bitterness in Sasori's voice when he mentioned the name of the blond who I had come to assume was his best friend.

_Note to self: Sasori hates people being late. _I made a mental note as I smiled at him.

"Sorry I'm late, Master!" Deidara scrambled in the room, A teenager in a mask who I knew to be named Tobi following after him. Tobi was an odd was, someone who was almost always alone despite his sunny disposition. This was his second year at the camp, a never had I seen the face that lurked behind the cheery mask.

"Just sit down already." Sasori glared at him, "and who's that person following you?"

"Oh, this is Tobi." Deidara introduced, sitting down next to Sasori, Tobi scooting in next to Deidara as Ino and Shikamaru arrived to sit next to me.

The group talked for awhile, the conversation made up mostly of Deidara aiming statements and comments towards Sasori but receiving replies instead from Ino and Tobi.

"I wish they had strawberry milk here, that would be really nice, yeah?" Deidara looked over at the redhead next to him.

"Yeah, but I think normal milk is less fattening." Ino answered in place of Sasori.

"I could drink a whole gallon of strawberry milk in one sitting!" Tobi thrust his fist in the air as if his declaration was something to be proud of.

"Then do it!" Ino countered.

"I can't, not in front of anyone, I'd have to take my mask off!" Tobi reasoned.

"Is that a bad thing?" Ino questioned.

"Yeah."

I spotted Deidara shoot an annoyed look over at Sasori, who just smirked and mouth "_you brought this on yourself_" to the blond.

I wanted to start a conversation with Sasori, but I wasn't sure how. I knew he liked woodworks, and I knew he liked art and that his best friend was Deidara. That seemed like more than enough information to base a conversation off of, but every time I went to open my mouth and say something I found myself shutting it again, becoming flustered and rethinking how to phrase my would-be sentence to make it sound smarter.

_Why am I getting so nervous? _I could hear my heart beat quicken, looking across from me at the serious artist. _ Can't be that I... L-like him...!?_ It was news to even myself, but I knew it had to be true. I had a crush on Sasori.


	6. Closer: Sasori's Journal

Chapter 6, Closer

[Sasori's Journal]

As I sat in my human anatomy class, I tapped my pencil against the paper, deep in thought and pulled away from the rest of the classroom. Even as I began to draw the lines on the paper, I couldn't erase the image of the pink haired girl from my mind. _I'd love to draw her, make a puppet that resembles her._ I thought, making another line on the paper, _she's not a bad person, she's rather interesting and it helps to know someone who's related to the owner... I can probably get Deidara off the hook if he does something stupid. Her friends aren't too annoying, I guess. Ino's a little bothersome, but it's funny to see what Deidara would be like if he was a girl, and Shikamaru never says much of anything to anyone. I don't mind being friends with her. _I had bore no intention of making new friends at the camp, and it hadn't crossed my mind that I would. I don't enjoy talking to other people too much, and even the ones I talk to end up becoming pests; but I couldn't deny that I thought Sakura was a suitable friend. She liked my art and was polite and sweet, and that was enough.

********

"What are you doing, Deidara?" I heard myself asking, wishing I had held my tongue. _I doubt I want to know..._

Deidara sat on the floor of his room, me sitting on his bed as he rummaged through the pack of things he had brought to the camp. The fact that he was looking in there could only mean one thing: explosions.

"I'm just going to show a certain someone what _real_ art is, yeah." He smirked.

"Who and why?" I sighed. I knew it would happen eventually. From the moment I ran into Deidara at the door of the art camp (Sakura had told me she was very confused about what had happened to it, but I didn't tell her) I knew it would all come down to explosions. That was who Deidara was, if someone was better than him, worse than him, on the same level as him-it didn't matter. All it took was one action to trigger his vengeance and he was off, risking getting arrested just for the sake of coming out on top. That was just Deidara.

"Itachi, yeah." Deidara revealed the target of his hatred to me.

"Itachi? Who's that?" I blinked.

"That teenager with the long black hair." He clarified.

"Oh." That still didn't explain why, but I didn't think I even wanted to know. "Don't do anything stupid."

"I won't!" He retorted. His actions spoke louder than his words as I watched him pull more explosives from his bag and lay them out on the ground next to him.

"Deidara, if you blow anything up, you'll get thrown out of the camp." I warned him. I glanced out Deidara's window, the sunset visible through the thin layer of glass. The edges of the sky were a soft pink, like the Italian ice that Deidara's mother made when we went over his house last summer, the sun turned to a blazing orange ball that slowly lowered in the sky like we were watching a child's bouncy ball fall to the ground in slow motion. With the sky in a such a state, I knew darkness would soon consume the colorful clouds. We had heard already that everyone was supposed to be in their own rooms by nightfall, but Sakura had just laughed and told us it really didn't matter.

"It will be fine." Deidara chuckled like I was overreacting. "I won't get thrown out. Besides, we're friends with Sakura now, I'm sure she can cover for me."

I knew that what he said was true, at least the later part, but I also knew that Sakura's influence could only go so far. Knowing Deidara, and spotting the amount of explosives he had laid out on the ground next to him, he wasn't going to do some little trick that could be covered with Sakura's help.

"Why don't you sleep on it?"

"Sleeping won't change my mind, yeah." He stood up, "I should ask Sakura to tell me what his room number is. She has access to the office, I'm sure she can find out."

"Deidara," He looked dead at me with a tired expression, expecting me to give him more lectures. "Why don't we sleep together?"

Deidara let his mouth fall open, his face turning so flushed that my hair would have paled in comparison. _What have I done...? _I never thought of myself as an overly impulsive person, but I found myself transforming in the quickly fading light f Deidara's room. _Why is he so red, anyway...?_

"Well?" I smirked. _At least he won't be throwing a fuss over that Itachi now... this should be enough to get his mind off explosives... _

[Note: sorry this chapter was so short! More will be up soon!]


	7. Haunting: Deidara's Journal

Chapter 7, Haunting

[Deidara's Journal]

When I heard my master call my name in a stern voice, I was prepared for him to go off on one of his rants. I would never go as far as to say he's not understanding, but I knew that the cool and collected Sasori could never fathom the rage that was burning inside every fiber of my body, urging me to set fire and destruction to the person who had so unjustly wronged me. Even if my master could wrap his head around my situation, it would take too long for an impatient person like himself to attempt. I gave him an exasperated look, hoping he would get the message of my "unwavering determination" quickly enough to spare me hours of his scolding. _For someone who hates keeping people waiting, he should know not to hold me up like this when it won't do me (or him) any good, yeah._

"Why don't we sleep together?" Even as I saw his perfect lips form the words, his eyes remaining relaxed as always and his pale face without the hint of blush, they felt like they had been spoken by someone else. Someone with a sick sense of humor and nasty grudge against me, yeah. My mouth dropped, my face heating up like the pavement outside of the school and back on the streets of that summer where the two of us had first met. "Well?" He smirked, knowing that with his five hot words he had melted my desire to ever leave my room.

My head was spinning, like a preschooler that had just been told an calculus question when all they knew was basic addition. Before me was my best friend-the one person who had never been afraid to me honest with me, yet never feared giving me a smile or a pat on the back. He was one of the few people I had come to respect, and I couldn't bare the thought of losing him again.

_"So, I guess this is goodbye." _I remembered the words he had spoken last summer as if they had come from eons ago, a horrid nightmare that was mirrored only by the possible results of my next actions.

My master had chuckled, the bright sun's rays reflecting off his narrow eyes, a grin playing upon his usually monotone face, _"Not really. I'm sure I'll hear about you again, when you end up killing yourself in some pointless explosion. The day I do, I promise I'll rush to your funeral." _

_"Yeah, and when you become a famous artist, and end up making your old decaying pieces of wood, I promise I'll come and see them, before I blow them up, at least." _I _g_rinned, hiding the pangs of pain that I felt pounding through my chest.

_"I'm sure we'll have more misadventures together one day, Deidara, so until the next time I have the misfortune of running into you." _I wonder what would have happened if those had been his last words to me, leaving me there on the train platform, drenched in sweat from wearing black on the last brilliantly sweltering day of that unbearably hot summer. I don't think I could have lived with that parting, yeah, or even worse, if his smirking face had been replaced with a look of dismay.

I was snapped back to the crushing pressure of my suddenly awkward reality, my master still with the same amused look. "Well, what will it be, Deidara?"

"Sasori.. I..." I gulped hard, unable to look into his eyes. "I wanna sleep with you, yeah." I admitted, my face hotter than the temperature outside, my heart beating like a bomb that was ready to burst.

"Good. Put all those explosives away and come sit next to me." He said, patting the space on the bed next to him.

I hurriedly stuffed my beloved art supplies away and sat down next to him, monitoring my every movement as I did so. _I've never felt so... self-conscious around him... but now that I know we're about to..._

"Deidara," He spoke, looking up at me (it always did seem strange that I'm taller than him, even though he's far more mature, yeah) "Don't get so flustered over something so _little_. You overreact far too much."

_Little? This is possibly the furthest thing from little ever! I can't believe he's so calm about this...! Has he been planning it for awhile...? Has he done this sort of thing with other boys...No, he's not like that, yeah. _I thought trying to pull myself together.

"It's just a sleep over. We had sleep overs last summer, too, I don't see the big deal." He said, raising an eyebrow at me.

_He meant... sleep together... as in have a sleep over... not..._It took me a minute, but I connected the dots.

"You always got so excited when we had sleep overs last summer, I thought it would make you happy. I never imagined you'd get nervous over something so trivial, though." He chuckled. "So, what would you like to do?"

_You. _I thought, but didn't dare say. "Uh..." My thoughts were still jumbled, the shock had been a tranquillizer to my mind, and the affects were only slowly wearing off.

"I have an idea, how about we play with a _Ouija _board." He suggested.

I had never been tempted to disturb the dead, but a part of me wasn't surprised that the thought of talking with ghosts appealed to Sasori, yeah. I always thought there was something disturbingly macabre about all his corpse like puppets. "You have one, yeah?"

"No, but we can make one, all we have to do is write the alphabet on a piece of paper." He already had a piece of paper in his hand, using the hard surface of clip board to steady his writing. Each letter curled slightly at the end, his writing both elegant and small. I could see him stressing to write bigger than usual for the sake of the game. "You know how to play, right?" He checked first. I nodded. "We'll need something to put our hands on..."

"Oh, I can handle that." Reaching into my pocket I pulled out some clay, shaping it into the form of a triangle.

"That should do." He placed the clipboard between us on the bed, laying the clay piece in the center of our makeshift medium. "For the record, I don't believe in this sort of thing." He clarified. "It's just a game."

I chuckled, "You just want to see if I'll get scared, yeah."

"That too." He smirked, placing his hands on the clay piece. Again, I found myself feeling awkward and self conscious. Sasori is _not _a physical person, even high-fives are a rare occurrence with someone as distant and calm as he is. His pale skin always looks so soft... I put my hands on his, a shiver running up my spine. He on the other hand seemed unaffected. "Alright, spirits, we beseech you, honor us with your presence." He spoke politely, yeah.

The marker slowly spelled out the word "_hello_". Sasori fired more questions at the phantom, like what it's name was, when it had lived, and how it died. The room had become dark, the night pitch black and only the light from the moon illuminating the scene. Slowly, without having been asked a question, the clay marker inched over to an "I" followed by spelling out he word "will", and a slow creeping towards the letter "K", then I, and L... I jumped, taking my hands off the board.

"I think we should stop, Master!" My look of horror wasn't reflected in Sasori's face, in fact he was actually laughing. "W-what's so funny?"

"You're so simple minded, Deidara." He told me smugly, "_I _was moving it. You said it yourself, I just wanted to scare you."

I flushed, "Y-you jerk!" I grabbed him by his thin shoulders, pushing him down on the bed as he continued to chuckle.

He smiled up at me, "At least you're not thinking about blowing up Itachi any more."

"No, I'm thinking of blowing you up!" I laughed, not moving from my position. The moonlight flooded in through the window, my Master wearing a rare, happy face for once. _Even if he scared me, he was just trying to distract me from Itachi... he really is nice, yeah... I guess... maybe that's part of why I love him. _

I tightened my grip on his shoulders, leaned down, and kissed him.

[author's note]

Sorry it took so long! The next chapter will be out soon!


	8. Clashing: Deidara's Journal

Chapter 8, Clashing

[Deidara's Journal]

I can't say how many times I imagined kissing him, but every time I fantasied about it, he was always willing. But I guess if life was just like my fantasies, more people would appreciate my art. In that dimly lit room I lived out my greatest fantasy, my ultimate desire. I closed my eyes as I gently pressed my lips to his, just as warm and soft as they were in each of my dreams, yeah. Once I realized there was no turning back, I forcefully parted his lips with my own, slipping my tongue into his mouth as our bodies pressed together. I indulged in the lust for him I had always contained, kissing him feverishly in an attempt to taste every particle of his delicious existence. I was overwhelmed by the experience, yet a painful realization drew me back to reality. I felt him squirm beneath me, noticing that my grip on his shoulder's hadn't only tightened slightly, but that I was holding him down with all my might. His hands pressed against my chest, and in a moment of recognition I pulled away, releasing him completely and jumping off the bed.

My master Sasori's elegant features are like that of a doll, fixed forever in a look of perpetual, _passive_, perfection, yeah. Only occasionally will he show an expression of vexation (usually when I'm late), or a cocky smirk whenever he proves his utmost cleverness. Since the summer began, the only look of complete shock I had seen from him came at our explosive reunion at the camp doors. That moment had sent my heart into a spasm of happiness, yet as I looked onto him that night, my heart nearly swallowed it's self in fear, yeah. _What have I done? _I saw a look of complete bewilderment on his face that night, as if he thought what had just happened was all a dream. After all, how could anyone expect him to comprehend that his best friend had just _sexually assaulted_ him, yeah? He sat up, one hand to his mouth and staring at me speechless, his brown eyes as wide as the glowing moon.

"I..." I staggered backwards. "I... I'm sorry, master, yeah..." I bolted out the door, slamming it behind me. I wasn't sure where I was running too, we had been in _my_ room, and unlike my master, I hadn't made any new friends at the camp. There wasn't chance in hell that I would run off to that Sakura girl, and even less a chance of me going to someone like that harlot Konan, arrogant Itachi, or loud mouthed Hidan. There was that odd boy with the orange mask, Tobi, but a part of me protested that going to him would only complicate things more. _I haven't got a choice, I'll have to find out what room number he's in and go there... I can't go back to Master Sasori, yeah, not after what just happened... and even if Tobi is obnoxious at least he's friendly enough._ I was alone, running down the hallway of a small art camp that had already gone to sleep, the lights all turned off and the corridor as pitch black as my future seemed.

"Ow!" I stumbled backwards and fell down on the hard floor, trying to make out the person I had bumped into.

"Are you alright?" Though the words reflected concern, the voice sounded cold and emotionless. I grabbed the hand that was outstretched to me and stood up.

"I'm fine, yeah."

"I'm Sai."

"I'm Deidara... what were you doing out here?" I asked.

"I stayed after class to help clean up. I lost track of time." He explained. "But what are you doing running down the hallway in the dark?" It sounded a lot more sketchy when he phrased it like that, yeah.

There wasn't a chance I was going to tell him the full story, and so I simply told him, "I'm looking for Tobi's room number."

He apologized in the same flat voice. "Sorry, I don't know which room that is."

"Are you sure? He's the loud one with the orange mask." I insisted, a step away from asking the stranger to room with him for the night.

"Now that you mention it," he remembered, "I think I saw him leaving room 127."

"Thanks, you've been a big help Sai." I turned to find the room, only then realizing that it would be difficult in a light-less hallway. "Hey, Sai, help me find the room, yeah?" He didn't respond, but I could hear his footsteps as he moved around, as if he actually thought seeing was possible in the thick darkness. _If only I had taken my bag of explosions with me... I think I had a few sparklers in there I could've used as flash lights. _Just as I was about to give up hope on finding the one person I was almost always avoiding, Sai called out in his serene voice.

"Come over here Deidara, it's this one." I followed the sound of his voice, astonished that he could make out the numbers in the dark.

"You can read in this light, yeah?"

"No, I just ran my fingers across the number plate. I guess a stupid blond can't figure that much out." I hadn't expected an insult from someone who had just taken time to help me.

"Wha-what did you just say to me? You're trying to start a fight, yeah?" I reached forward to grab him by the collar of his shirt, but before I could get a hold of him Tobi's door swung open.

"Deidara, sir, what a surprise!" He threw his arms up in the air ecstatically.

The light from his room filled the entire hallway, making Sai's face visible to me for the first time. _I've seen him in class before... he's a talented artist..._ The oddest thing about the black haired phantom of a teenager before me, was that he was _smiling_, yeah. There was something off about him though, and the sight of his eerie grin only unsettled me. "Goodbye, yeah." I glared at him.

"Have a nice evening." He walked away, the darkness swallowing him quickly, like a mother welcoming a child back into her arms. Sai was gone, leaving me to be dragged into the mess of broken crayons and sticker books that was Tobi's room. Room 127 was on the opposite side of the hallway of my room and had no windows. His bed sheets were unmade and a there was a picture of a monkey draw in shaky crayon and tapped crookedly to the wall. "I'm tired, Tobi, why don't you be a good boy and sleep on the floor tonight, yeah?" I offered, sitting down on his bed.

Tobi saw straight through my facade, "If there's something troubling you, you should talk about it. It will make you feel better." He presented classic elementary school logic to me with an air of confidence.

I didn't know what compelled me to talk, but somehow I ended up telling him, "I think I made one of my friends upset."

"You should apologize, running away won't solve anything!" Tobi held his fists out in front of him as he made the statement.

"I know that, Tobi, and I will talk to him-_tomorrow, _yeah." I didn't see why he was so quick to have me leave, after all it would be the only time I would waste my words on him, yeah. I guess it was his twisted, simplistic few of right and wrong that made him wave his arms around like a buffoon. "I'm too tired now." Tobi didn't argue about letting me sleep in his bed, in fact he seemed perfectly at home curled up in a ball on the floor. I might have felt bad about taking advantage of him, or be pissed at Sai for helping me and then making fun of me, but my head was too preoccupied with more important matters, yeah.


	9. Trust: Sakura's Diary

Chapter 9, Trust

[Sakura's Diary]

Sasori was _always_ one of the first ones in the lunch room for breakfast, unless it was one of those rare occasions when he decided to wait for the ever late Deidara. "Sakura, what are you looking for?" Ino pried. "Argh, I wish Shikamaru would wake up earlier, it's so much cooler having breakfast when he's around." She whined as usual.

I sighed, sitting down at the table across from her, "Sasori is usually here by now." I explained.

"Maybe he slept in today." She shrugged and took a bite of her blueberry muffin. The excuse wasn't working for me, though. Sasori is frantically punctual, he would get frustrated if a class started even a moment after the bell, and would complain if it ended a mere second late. I knew he wasn't the kind of person to keep others waiting, not unless something was seriously wrong. Just as I was about to stand back up and go searching for him, Ino pointed out, "Hey, look, there's your prince." Sasori walked over to us, sitting down next to me with only a glass of orange juice in his hand. There was defiantly something off about him that morning. He had lost his usual composed air, sitting their with a half-awake zombie aura that was characteristic of Shikamaru. His eyes looked weary rather than sharp, a troubled frown playing on his lips as he sipped sparingly from the glass.

"You're later than usual, Sasori! Did you spend the night partying?" Ino joked, yet Sasori didn't even smirk in response, giving a flat "no" as if it had been a serious question. I thought seeing him would relieve some of my worries, but it only intensified them. That's when the idea popped into my head. I reached over and grabbed his hand in mine, he looked up at me confused, but I didn't give him time to question me.

"Come on, Sasori, there's somewhere I want to take you!" I told him, leaving a confused Ino behind and taking a bewildered Sasori with me. The two of use went running through the narrow hallways and up the flight of old wooden stairs.

"W-where are we going, Sakura?" He asked as I pulled him along, now pass all the dorm rooms and to the end of the hall.

I wanted to wait and surprise him, but I know he hates waiting for anything, so I gave him an upfront explanation. "The roof top!" I reached up and pulled a small string dangling from the ceiling, old stairs in desperate need of maintenance and new screws rolling out in front of us with a painful squeak. _I'll have to remind Dad to fix them. _I told myself, still clutching his hand in mine as we ascended to the top of the art camp. The roof isn't made for sitting-it's slanted with dusty Tuscan red tiles that Dad always talks about replacing with a new spiffy electric blue set but never does. I stepped carefully on the roof, knowing the slightest step could send both me and Sasori tumbling down to the ground, yet there was comfort in the fact that the small school is only two stories high. We stood side by side on the rooftop, looking out at a sky that was a sheet of cloudy gray, save for a few spots of blue where the sun struggled to shine through. Now that I had stopped moving, the feeling of his hand in mine became all the more apparent, and blushing I released it. "Sometimes when I get upset I'll come up here. It's a nice place to relax (though these days Hidan skips classes and sits up here a lot... )." I told him with a smile as he looked out at the sky blank-faced. "When I can look out and see the entire world like this, it just makes my problems seem so small." I had tugged him along with a burst of confidence, but once on the roof I could feel my face heating up and my words becoming jumbled. _Get_ _a hold of yourself together Sakura, cha! _I encouraged myself. "But I'm glad, that even if my problems are insignificant, I still have friends who are willing to listen to them." I turned to him. "So, Sasori, you can tell me what's on your mind."

"That was fast..." He grumbled, looking away from me.

"There's no point in beating around the bush, is there? It's clear there's something bothering you. So, you can tell me what it is, or I could push you off this roof and see if you feel like telling me afterwards." I smirked, making corny jokes to lighten the mood.

He chuckled slightly, "Well, I don't think I could live down getting clobbered by a woman... but thank you, Sakura, I think I'll be just fine."

"Sasori, come on, can't you trust me?" I pushed further. Sasori was always so distant, and it was time someone broke the glass box he had encased himself in.

He looked a bit taken a back, "I... I do trust you, Sakura."

"Then you can talk to me about it. My father owns the camp, you know, if there's an issue I'm sure I can arrange for it to be fixed." I had no idea just what kind of "issue" I was going to be dealing with.

He took in a deep breath and looked out to the stormy sky, "Sakura, you're a pretty girl," he began.

My head swirled, unable to take in the words he had just spoken. I wasn't like one of those actresses from a 1950's black and white movie who faints at the mention of even slightly shocking news, but even so I could still feel butterflies batting their wings around inside my stomach. _T-this... he... is he going to confess his l-l-l-love to me...?_

Alas, he finished he sentence, "so you must know what it's like to find out one of your friends... feels... that way about you." I noticed his pale cheeks taking color as he tried to hide his embarrassment by looking towards the clouds. Speaking of romance seemed to much for the stone prince to handle.

I remembered Naruto and Lee, two of my friends from highschool, and nodded, "You found out one of your friends has a crush on you? Yeah, that's happened to me before, too." I ran the possible candidates through my mind,_ There's Konan, I see her talk to him sometimes, but I didn't think they were really "friends"... other than that, the only people he sticks around are Deidara, Ino, Shikamaru, and me. God... Ino didn't hit on him, did she? That would be __**so**__ like her. _I was already jumping conclusions and blaming Ino. "Since they're your friend, it's best to reject them as kindly as possible, but make sure you're firm. You don't want them misunderstanding anything." I recalled the first time Lee had asked me out, well, I hadn't been kind then, but I had learned with time to be sweeter when putting down the few admirers I had.

"That's not the problem..."

"Then what is it? You... do you think you like your friend back?"

Sasori's cheeks turned a deeper shade, "I don't know if I like them or not..." he admitted. "I never really thought about that sort of thing before. I've never really considered... being... with someone... I never met anyone I thought was worth my time. But my friend..." I could tell he was avoiding mentioned who exactly this mystery lover was, "is someone special. I have an introverted personality; I never really liked being around people... but when I'm around my friend, I'm happy... I'm not sure what that means." He shook his head in confusion. "My head feels like a painting by Jackson Pollock... I don't understand this situation in the least."

"Have you spoken to her since she confessed?"

"Well... no, I haven't seen... _my friend_... since the incident."

I thought back to the lunchroom, Ino sitting their and groaning about missing Shikamaru. _She might be a man-eater, but she can't be the one who has a crush on Sasori, he claims he hasn't seen the girl since, and he saw Ino just a few minutes ago... I guess that means... It has to be Konan... but I can't let him make this mistake! He's just confused because no one has ever confessed to him before, he doesn't realize what he's doing. _Unknowing I let my thoughts slip to the selfish side of things, but I couldn't help myself. Sasori was everything I liked in a boy: clever, calm, beautiful, talented, and impassioned about his artwork. I gulped, "Give it some time and thing it over. I'm sure your friend will understand."

Sasori nodded, "I'll just act natural around my friend while I'm trying to figure out my feelings." He finally looked me in the eyes, a serene grin on his face, "You know, I actually like cloudy days like this." He told me, "Thank you for talking to me, Sakura, I think I'll be able to figure things out now. I'm glad I have you as a friend."

I grinned, "Don't worry, Sasori, the fact that you might indeed have feelings after all is a secret safe with me" I joked, "and... I'm glad I have you as a friend, too."

_This is just great._ I thought sarcastically. _Sasori will try and figure out his feelings towards his friend, while I try and figure out how to convey my feelings towards him._.. I gave the foreboding sky a final look before leaving the roof top with Sasori, wondering what it was he saw in the puffs of gray sky. To me, it looked ominous, and I wasn't sure what would come of our small futures, of fate of my heart which hiccuped whenever he was around. I wanted to put a hand to my chest, to feel the melodious beat of my excited heart, but felt compelled not to for fear that he might catch the action from the corner of his eye. _The person who confessed to Sasori yesterday... I wonder if their heart sounds like this, too._

[author's note]

Wow, this story has gotten pretty long! Thanks for reading, please comment and tell me what you think! The story will probably be around 15 chapters long. :) The next chapter will be from Sasori's POV.


	10. Confrontation: Sasori's Journal

Chapter 10, Confrontation

[Sasori's journal]

I didn't want to approach it as a confrontation. For once, I was allowing myself time to figure everything out properly, I didn't want to make a poor decision in my haste. Speaking with Sakura had woken me up more than any cup of coffee could have. My senses were sharper, keener, and I was prepared to face Deidara again. I had spent so much time looking out at the clouded sky with Sakura, that by the time I arrived at my block one class, basic pencil work, it was already almost half over. I handed the teacher a pass Sakura had grabbed for me from the front office and looked over at my usual seat, next to the rambunctious blond. To my dismay, it was already filled. The teenage who took my place had a pallid face as white as chalk, and he countered Deidara's frustration with a dispassionate, "I don't understand why you're arguing with me. _It's nothing personal_. I just don't think you have balls." I had seen him a few times in class before, I was sure I had noticed him for his talent, but never had I seen him with Deidara.

My eyes darted from my fill-in to the item of my confusion. Deidara looked a wreck. His long hair, usually pulled back in a bouncy pony tail that fit his petty personality, instead lay flat around his shoulders. There were dark rings lining his eyes, and not just his standard heavy duty black eye-liner. "WHAT? I don't see how you can help someone and then insult them!" Deidara exclaimed, slamming his pencil into the paper before him and snapping the tip off.

"You're the one who asked me to sit next to you." he black haired boy I would later come to know as Sai commented back without a hint of edge in his voice.

I didn't wait any longer, I wasn't going to give them time to notice me standing there and watching their play unfold. I spotted a vacant desk in the back next to Hidan and took it begrudgingly, preferring to listen to his cursing and complaints for the rest of class rather than ask Sai to move. _It's not as though I'm jealous of him. _I convinced myself. _It's not as though Deidara is going to date him just because I didn't confess... liking him... when he... did that..._ The thought was still hard for me to swallow. _I've made plenty of friends here... like Sakura... there's no reason he can't also have them._

I kept one eye on the back of Deidara's head for the entire class, giving myself the twenty minutes that were left of basic pencil drawing to determine my feelings. _That should be enough time. _I judged. _But how do you know if you like someone? I've never liked anyone in that sort of manner before, so how should I know what it's like? I should have asked Sakura... I'll have to ask her later... _I allowed my dependence on Sakura to grow as my faith in myself deteriorated. I was wading into pitch black waters as dangerous as they were foreign, and Sakura would have to serve as my life guard if I didn't want to drown. _What if he's moved on to that black haired boy? I know it's unlikely, but maybe a hypothetical situation might help me understand better... if he had moved on... I think I'd be glad for him. It might be nice not having him clinging to me and always making explosions in my ear... so... I don't like him, do I...? But if I don't, why do I have this strange feeling like that's too final of a thing to say?_

I spared a glance at Hidan's paper, which was covered in his favorite parts of the male anatomy and a few stick figures decapitating each other. _If only my mind was as simple as his. _I chuckled to myself. Class ended right on time, Hidan erupting with a spew of fowl language that summed up to "thank goodness class is over" when you took out all the useless exclamations between each word. _We have different classes next, but I'll catch him in the hallway and talk with him as if nothing happened. _I decided, my head feeling clearer with my mind decided.

I walked over to Deidara after the class was over, putting my hand down on his desk as he shoved his papers into his folder. "I'm not sure what makes you look more girlie, wearing your hair in a pony tail or wearing down like this." He looked up, his one visible eye round with shock, his face just as animated as ever. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"He called you a girl, I don't see why you get upset when I say you don't have balls." Sai noted, putting his things away neatly before leaving Deidara without so much as a goodbye.

"Who was that?" I asked in an off-hand manner, without hinting how curious I truly was.

"Ah... T-that was Sai, yeah. I don't really know him that well, he's sort of weird." He stuttered, his face beginning to take on the same color as my ruby red hair.

"Oh. Well come on, let's get to our next classes, unless you want to sit there all day." I said as I looked down at him. _He looks so nervous, does he think I'm going to stop being his friend over something like this? Even if I don't like him back, it's still a compliment that he likes me...He does look kind of cute though..._ I blinked, _Wait, did I really just think that? _

My second class, woodworks, came and went, Sakura didn't mention our discussion from that morning. Before long it was already time for lunch. I sat down at our usual table, Sakura, Ino, and Shikamaru filing in afterwards. Not much to my surprise, Deidara arrive a few minutes later. He sat next to me apprehensively. I wasn't sure how to start a conversation. Deidara's also been conceited, he loves going on rants about himself and never has any trouble talking about nothing for hours on end. I would sometimes think that he spoke only to hear the sound of his own voice, which he certainly loved. The truth is, though I hadn't realized it, I think I too loved the sound of it.

"Hey, Deidara, you wore your hair down today." Ino grinned. I was always contentiously amazed that a woman as lovely as Sakura could befriend someone as hyper and catty as Ino, yet none the less I did not hate the obnoxious blond. I too, had my own wild blond friend, I suppose people who are composed tend to gravitate to people with bubbly personalities.

"Tobi wanted to braid it this morning, he was so annoying, yeah. I hardly had time to brush my hair, let alone put it in a pony tail with how annoying he is, yeah." Deidara retold, revealing where he had escaped off to the night before. As he spoke he reached out one hand, grabbed his glass and taking a sip.

I saw Ino's eyes dart to his nails, painted black like all his clothing was. "Hey, Deidara," Her grin widened to mischievous proportions. "I've been thinking for some time...eye liner... long hair... painted nails...an interest in art... Deidara, you're _gay_, aren't you?"

If looks could kill, Ino would have been slaughtered there in the lunchroom. Sakura glared at her, Shikamaru looking baffled by her lack of class. I gulped. _Perfect timing, Ino. You had to realize he's homosexual today?... But... Ino realized his sexuality after only a few weeks of knowing him... I've been best friends with him for a summer and a half... and the thought never even crossed my mind that he might be homosexual. Have I really been so dense all this time? _I decided that I preferred it when Deidara wasn't talking, worried what his next words would be.

He looked surprised at first, but answered without hesitation,"Yeah, I'm gay." he admitted. "I'm in love with Master Sasori." He said, turning and looking at me with an apologetic expression.


	11. Love: Deidara's Journal

Chapter 11, Love

[Deidara's Journal]

"I'm in love with Master Sasori." I had to say it. What else could I do? Aside from skipping half of period one Master Sasori didn't seem like he was even going to acknowledge our kiss, yeah, and after finally expressing all my secret feelings for him, I couldn't let them be ignored. I wanted to make my feelings clear. I hadn't acted based on lust alone. I hadn't acted on some ridiculous whim. I had acted on _love. _Losing him was the worse nightmare I could fathom, but I had to be honest. Hiding my feelings was lying-to Ino, who had asked, to him, to myself, to the moment when I kissed him, and to my own heart.

I looked into my masters narrow brown eyes as I spoke, which portrayed only the slightest hint of surprise. "Wow, I was right! Jackpot." Ino chuckled, breaking the silence that had formed. I continued looking at Master Sasori, locking eyes with him as I waited for his response, it the only one that really mattered, yeah.

"Ino, that's a horrible way to make someone come out of the closet... god... you're bothersome..." Shikamaru admonished, giving her a scornful look which I caught from the corner of my eye. Ino didn't seem to take his words to heart, rolling her eyes and staying focused on me and Master Sasori, yeah.

"I wasn't in the closet... Well, I never lied about being gay, I just never said anything... well, I guess that's lying in a way, too, yeah..." I looked at Shikamaru and Ino when I spoke, finally breaking eye-contact with Master Sasori.

"So... you guys are boyfriends? That's so cool!" Ino looked pleased "Like, I get real jealous if a hot guy dates another girl but it's kind of cool when two cute guys are together! So how long have you been dating?" I was partially glad Ino had given me a proper opportunity to confess, but at that point I wanted to either cover her mouth with duck-tape or blow it off with any of the many explosives I had left in my room.

There was an awkward moment of silence,"No," I replied, "Master Sasori didn't know either."

"Sasori..." I saw Sakura look over at him compassionately, as if he had just been dealt a heavy blow.

_Is that what my feelings are...? Just a burden...? Maybe Sai was right... I'm just a dick-less pansy... if I told him I was gay from the start, this wouldn't have been so shocking..._ I thought, yeah.

"I'm sorry," I turned and looked at him. Here it was. The rejection. At least with this I could finally end my one-sided romance. Maybe with a goodbye to any hopes of romance, I could even continue being friends with him. "I should have noticed sooner."

I blinked, "Noticed sooner? It's... not something you have to apologize for." _What would he have done if he had known sooner? Would he have rejected me when my feelings were still budding? Would he have tried to distance himself from me? If so, I'm glad he never noticed..._

"I'm your friend and I didn't even know that much about you, I'm sorry." He said anyway.

"This is like a soap opera!" I heard Ino giggled to Sakura and Shikamaru, who didn't seem to be enjoying the drama that was unfolding before them like she was. Hungry for more, she tried to spark a flame, yeah. "Sasori, are you straight, or gay? How are you going to answer Deidara's confession? You have to say something!"

I saw my master shift uncomfortably, "... I..." He glanced over at Sakura.

_Why is he looking at her, yeah? _I wondered.

"I must use the restroom. I will return shortly, if you'll excuse me." He said, his tone flustered as he hurried to escape the situation. I watched him as he stood up and walked away from the table, grinning silently to myself.

_Master didn't flat out reject me... does that mean... I still have a chance...? _The thoughts jumped around excitedly in my mind and in my heart. My love had a chance. It was something I had never considered. From the beginning I thought my admiration was a doomed affair, that my heart had betrayed itself, was trying to commit suicide and get itself broken beyond recognition, yeah. _My love... has a chance, yeah! _


	12. Refreshing: Sasori's Journal

Chapter 12, Refreshing

[Sasori's Journal]

I had, politely as possible, left the table and escorted myself to the bathroom. I stood over the sink, splashing cold water on my face. "Are you trying to drown yourself?" I looked up, taking the brown paper towel that was held out to me and drying off my face.

"No, I just needed to escape." I admitted. I paused. There was only one person with a voice so covered in false honey and underlining monotone. "Sai."

He put on his usual mask, "Escape from your friends? What's the point of having bonds with people if they're only troublesome?"

_I suppose I used to think that way too, before I met Deidara. _I thought. At first Sai's detachment to other people had baffled me, but I was slowly beginning to see a younger version of myself reflected in his liquid pale skin. "I just needed some time to think. You can relate to that, can't you?" I wasn't going to bother answering his question. There's no point in explaining the importance of a bond to someone who's never had one. That's just something people have to figure out on their own.

"_Escape_ and _think_ have different meanings." He informed me, taking out a blank scroll from his pocket and writing the differing kanji for the two words next to one another. He wasn't just an expert at calligraphy, but amazingly fast at it as well. I wondered if he used such artistic jokes often. "So which one are you doing?"

"Both. I'm _escaping_ to _think_." I explained. "Why are you badgering me?"

"I'm just curious." He gave a slight shrug, as if his fake enthusiasm didn't prove his lack of concern already.

"About me?" I raised an eyebrow. _I need another issue like I need a hole in my head. _

"About your friendship with Deidara." Sai clarified, "For as long as I can remember, I haven't been able to feel anything... I don't know about bonds, or friendship. If I did understand those thinks once, they're just faded memories that are eternally lost to me now... but Deidara interests me. He was a wreck this morning in class, and now you're panicking in here. I want to know what it is that you two value so much that you'd tear yourselves apart for it." He revealed his motives simply.

Cold. Flat. Emotionless. Had I never met Deidara, they could have been my eyes. _He's as pale as a skeleton and comes out of the woodwork of this place like he's my own shadow... If I didn't know better, I'd say he's the ghost of my past come back to haunt me, or perhaps the omen of what could happen if I don't handle this situation with care. _I thought, summoning the resolve to tell Sai about the matter at hand.

"Deidara and I became best friends last summer." I started from the beginning, "But I found out recently he's in..." I still couldn't force the words out of my mouth, "that he likes me...in...a r-romantic... way...but I don't know if I... like him... or not. I'm confused about my own feelings, but I don't want to hurt him, either..."

Sai's face was twisted up in one of his superficial grins, it was the preface for something negative, as all false smiles always are, "You must be in the wrong bathroom, because you clearly don't have any balls." Without an ounce of change in his tone or expression, he allowed the filthy insult to slip past his lips.

"What was that?" I narrowed my eyes at him. Unlike Deidara, I'm not the kind to jump at the first chance to fight, but my pride wouldn't allow any arrogant brat to ridicule my gender, especially

when I was having trouble figuring out my sexuality.

Sai didn't seem to understand that my words weren't a que for him to repeat himself, "I said that you don't have balls. How can you be considered a man acting like that? You know the truth, don't you? Even I can understand the situation fully and you only explained it to me in a few sentences. You don't have the _courage_ to decide if you like him or not. You're too afraid to make up your mind. Wasn't this whole problem started because he thinks too little and you think too much? I don't know what it's like to love someone... I've never even truly liked someone... so I might not give the best advice, but I would think that if you love someone, you'd feel it in your chest, where I feel nothing. If you're not just some hollow puppet, then you should be able to know your feelings. You can't keep running and thinking your way out of situations, you have to face your feelings."

I didn't pause to consider how ironic it was that someone without feelings was lecturing me on my own. He was right. I was doing mental gymnastics just to avoid acknowledging my own emotions. I couldn't even say the word _love _without getting choked up. I had been lying to myself. It wasn't that I didn't know my feelings, it was that I didn't want to admit them. "You're right, Sai." I chuckled. "Maybe you should give having bonds a chance, I think it would work well for you." With a smile, I left the bathroom, Sai at my side. I wasn't going to run away. I wasn't going to avoid a confrontation this time. Deidara had been brave enough to confess his love, and I owed him an answer.

"Good luck." Sai told me, before parting and returning to his lone table to eat in silence.

I entered the lunch room and sat back down next to Deidara, Ino saying, "Hey, are you all right? You took awhile. You weren't like, throwing up, were you? Bulimia is totally bad...besides, you're already skinny enough."

"Ino, I don't think Sasori is as obsessed with his appearance as you are." Shikamaru corrected her through a yawn. "He probably just needed a break from you hounding him about troublesome stuff." For someone who is almost always asleep, Shikamaru really is quite insightful.

I took a sip from my glass, catching a flare of blue in the corner of my eye. Konan sat at the table next to us, her bewitching, narrow eyes focused on me the way a snake looks at it's prey. For a moment I held her gaze, realizing that she had been ease-dropping on my entire conversation from the moment Deidara had confessed. _Konan... what a curious woman... but her cryptic contemplations of me will have to wait for later... _I thought, breaking the stare and looking at Deidara.

"Deidara..." I spoke with confidence.

"Y-yes Master?" He blushed.

"You and I need to talk. Meet me outside the front door of the school at 8:30 tonight," I ordered, adding with a smirk, "and you better not be late."


	13. Colors: Deidara's Journal

Chapter 13, Colors

[Deidara's Journal]

"Is that an abstract painting?" Sai asked, looking over at my canvas, yeah. I was in painting class, the only class in which I was cursed with both Tobi and Sai, and it was my first block after lunch. I glanced at what I had painted, all splashes of reds, yellows, and oranges. The assignment had been the to try painting a beach-well, I guess I was a bit off.

"I can't just paint what I'm told to, I have to paint what I feel, yeah." I threw more passionate colors at the canvas. "Isn't every artist like that? Never mind, I bet you'll just say something weird if I ask you your feelings." I shrugged. It didn't stop Tobi from talking, though.

"You're right! You're right! I'll paint what I feel instead!" Tobi's "beach" if it could be called that, looked like smears of blue and sandy brown, yet at my suggestion I saw him try to paint monkeys and flamingos on the beach. Well, at least it was tropical, yeah. "Did you sort everything out with your friend?" He asked.

"Yeah." I nodded, yet both Sai and Tobi continued starring at me, waiting for me to explain. I sighed, "Sort of, I guess. He told me to meet him at 8:30 in front of the school..."

"Shouldn't you be happy about that?" Sai asked, "If he's asking to meet you, maybe he's going to except your feelings."

"Wait, how do you know about that, yeah?" I glared at Sai, distinctly remembering never telling him.

"I spoke with Sasori. It's not like he told me if he liked you or not, he just told me the situation."Sai explained, gently laying his brush on the canvas and dragging it into one delicate black line forming the shore of his monochrome beach.

I nodded, surprised that Sasori and Sai had spoken with one another, yet too concerned with our meeting at 8:30 to give it much thought. I decided to address Sai's original question, yeah. "I'm excited... but it still seems too good to be true. What if Sasori's just inviting me out to formally reject me? I don't think I'll be able to handle that..."

"Why would anyone reject you? You're an awesome friend!" Tobi gave me a thumbs up, missing the context of the word "reject".

Sai, on the other hand, seemed more understanding, yeah. "That could be true. Maybe he is just going to reject you tonight, but you should still be happy about it. Even if it's too good to be true, this still means you have a chance with him, and this means he's not disgusted by the idea of you being in love with him. Even if he rejects you, you can still be friends."

"Yeah, you're right, Sai." I had only known Sai for a day and a half, but it was the first positive thing he told me. I swirled my brush around in rosy pink paint, splattering it over the explosive red and fiery orange already on my canvas. "I'll add a more content color, to fit my emotions, yeah!"

"I like the color pink!" Tobi chimed in. "You sure like warm colors, don't you, Sir?"

"Yeah, I do." I agree. "They remind of my favorite things, explosions and Master Sasori!"

"And me, right?" He added, pointing to his orange mask.

"Actually, no." I shamelessly denied him.

"But... Sai, your entire painting is on a gray scale." I pointed out, yeah.

"And?" Sai asked, "You said it yourself, didn't you? Or do you not even listen to yourself when you speak? An artist paints what they feel. Colors... passion... I feel none of it... only the black and white of reality. That's why I'm so interested in you, Deidara, your bond with Sasori is something I want to understand, one day."

_He feels nothing? Sai's odder than I thought, yeah. But... _I grinned, "Well, Sai, than watch and learn from my romance!" I declared.

"Watch your romance... Oh Deidara, Sir, that's so dirty!" Tobi squirmed.

"I didn't mean like that you pervert!" I flicked my paint brush at him, getting a glob of cupcake pink on his white shirt. When I first met them, I didn't like Tobi and Sai at all. Sai was rude and my polar opposite, and Tobi had the intellect of a second grader... yet as I felt overwhelmed by my anxiety, I found comfort in mature Sai and immature Tobi, yeah.

After all my classes had finished, I wasn't sure what to do with myself. The minutes seemed to tick past painfully slow as I bit my lower lip anxiously, awaiting my destined meeting with Master Sasori. _Meeting me at nightfall... it's a romantic setting...or perhaps the right amount of darkness to swallow any hopes I have of him loving me. _

I thought back to one of our first meetings, only a few days after we had been introduced to each other. It was always so hot in my house (my mom's too cheap to use the AC, yeah) so on particularly boiling nights when it was impossible for me to sleep, I would stroll down the boardwalk until my eyelids finally became too heavy for me to stay awake. That's when I spotted him, justing sitting by the shore with a dreamy look in his cold eyes. I hardly knew him, but I was compelled to approach him, to sit beside him and talk to him. Of art, of life, of anything he would listen to-and he would listen to _anything_._ "Deidara, right?" _He spoke calmly as I perched myself next to him, as if it was natural to encounter another teenager in the dead of night. _"You said you like art, didn't you?" _It was the perfect opening. I ranted just to hear my own voice over the hum of the cicadas, just to know I wasn't the only person hearing it. I even shot a firework I had in my backpack off into the ocean, which he later scolded me for, yeah.

_"So, you think you're an artist? How can you even begin to consider yourself an artist when you can only create transcendent beauty at best? What will happen when you're dead and gone, and all your creations are in the grave with you? How can you call that art?"_ MasterSasori had sneered at me as we sat on two hulking boulders that overlooked the clouded waves, each crashing into the shore in time and bringing the scent of ocean to our noses.

I had smiled over at him, just pleased that another artist was willing to listen to my unique views. _"When I die, it will be a blast. You don't get it, do you, Master. My art might not last, but the impression it leaves in people's hearts will stay forever. True beauty lasts for only a few brilliant seconds, but it remains eternally in the minds of those who are fortunate enough to witness it, yeah."_

I shook my heard, glancing at the clock and pulling myself from my sweet memories. Still, it was only 6:00_. Argh... I won't get anywhere if I just sit around waiting for the time to come...Maybe I'll go talk to Sai and Tobi again...yeah..._ I forced myself to my feet and walked down the hallway. _Tobi's annoying, but he'll keep my mind off Master Sasori... and if I just keep thinking about him like this, I might have a heart attack before I get the chance to meet him tonight._ I had my hand pressed against the doorknob to Tobi's room, just as a flash of color caught my eye. Turning around, I saw her standing there with one hand on her hip.

"Konan...what do you want?" I wasn't going to fake pleasantries with her.

"My my, you're harsh today, Deidara, and one would think you'd be in a good mood." As she spoke, she twirled a lock of her hair between her fingers, her nails sparkling the same shade of ocean.

_How does she know...? Don't tell me Master Sasori told her?_ I thought, hoping I was wrong and she was just a good guesser, yeah. I didn't like the idea of the mysterious Konan getting closer to my master.

"I overheard Sasori talking to you at lunch... making plans to meet you tonight." She said in her velvet voice. I hated it. She sounded like a playboy model, or the kind of voice you'd expect to hear from a phone-sex hotline; hearing it just made my own voice feel all the more rough in comparison.

"Oh,... well, it's a private matter."

She didn't seem deterred at all. "All matters are private before they go public. It's just a matter of who makes them public... the people with the secret, or the people who want to know the secret." she reasoned. "but don't mind me. I just thought I'd stop and say hello. Have a lovely evening." With a slow wave, she turned and walked away, a dash of menacing blue on my warm pink canvas.


	14. Flaws: Sasori's Journal

Chapter 14, Flaws

[Sasori's Journal]

Summer nights, like summer days, are humid and disgusting. I stood outside the door of the art school, which had been repaired since the first day Deidara blew it off it's hinges. I was anxious for Deidara to arrive, even though it was my fault for coming early. _I hate having to wait, or making other's wait... so I came here early. _I thought, looking up at the sanguine sky. It was only around 7:30, the heavens still alight with the passion of a dying day. _Red...orange...pink...slowly fading away to deepest black...they're all his favorite colors. _I smirked to myself, _well, maybe not pink, but I think it suits him fairly well._ The new screws and pristine white door looked out of place on the old art camp. Shining sliver and flawless white were shallow compared to the character of the building that had survived countless decades, as unique as the students who filled it's narrow halls and stepped on it's squeaking floor boards. _Deidara always says how much he loves things that are new and edgy... he's always trying to stay ahead of the times... I guess he'd like the new addition. _On every matter we differ. I love the classics, he's obsessed with all things modern. I like quiet, serene places, and he wants to fill every corner of the world with the racket of his explosions. _We really couldn't be further apart... and yet I feel I understand him more than anyone else._

The door openly slowly, silently. "Ino told me she saw you leave the camp, so I figured you might be here. You came early." Sakura smiled. "I've been looking for you." She strolled over and stood next to me. "The sky is beautiful. It was so cloudy this morning, but everything cleared up. Wouldn't it be nice if everything could be like that? Just turn out for the better?" She looked up, then slowly back into my eyes. I waited for her to speak. "It would be nice, but maybe disappointment makes us stronger, right?" She suggested. "Still, I can't help but try, no matter what the result is. Isn't that what we all do? Try no matter how hopeless everything seems? Because... I can't abandon hope. I'm just that stubborn."

"It's one of your better traits." I told her earnestly.

"A person's greatest virtue is always their greatest vice." She giggled, but the sound soon faded. "But..before it's too late, I knew I had to tell you. I'm just that stubborn...That I need to push these feelings of mine on you. "After this, I'll move on, and I'll support you in whatever you do...because no matter what, that doesn't change the fact that we're friends... I just have to get this out of the way first..." She paused. "You're usually so impatient... all my rambling must bore you...but... you don't seem annoyed at all. That's because you already know what I'm going to say, don't you?" I smiled back at her, respecting her wishes. It was something she had to say, not matter what.

"I love you, Sasori." She announced, her face blushing the same rosy pink as the corners of the sky, her bright eyes full of strength and sentiment. Her determination was always endearing, her compliments the best flattery I ever received, her advice was always solid. That's what made her such a good friend, after all.

"Thank you." I smiled, "Me and Deidara... we're nothing alike. He's loud, obnoxious, arrogant, reckless... the list of flaws goes on and on... but, even though he's so _stupid..._I can't help but love him_."_

"I figured as much." Sakura took the news well. Her glassy eyes caught each ray of the fading light as the sun finally dipped into the horizon, her irises sparkling with each color of the rainbow. Despite the look of lose in her eyes she smiled contently. She had accomplished what she had set out to do, and for that, she was satisfied.

"Of course you would." I chuckled, "You're the smartest person I know."

"Thank you, Sasori...I wouldn't want to interfere with your prior engagement." Sakura spun on her heel, dashing off into the camp, past the other person who stood in the doorway. Darkness was setting in, the sun scampering off along with Sakura.

"You bastard." I smirked, "You heard everything, didn't you?"

"If I tell you I didn't, would you say it again?" He asked.

I hate making others wait, so I didn't tease my impatient friend any longer. I knew I had troubled him by taking so long to figure out my own emotions, so for his sake and mine, I didn't hold back when I told him how I felt. "Deidara, I love you" I smirked, adding "And you're dense as a brick."

He froze for a moment, taking in my words before springing forward and hug-tackling me to the ground. "Master Sasori!" He cried out in excitement, his arms around me as we both fell back onto the grass in front of the camp. "You can call me dense as much as you like, because you're the fool that decided to fall for me, yeah! I love you, Master Sasori!"

I chuckled, reaching up a hand and flipping him over so that I lay on top of him. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Deidara, I still have to pay you back for last time." His face turned bright red as I spoke, his heart racing as I pressed against him, putting my lips to his. _What an idiot... he kissed me last time, and yet he's so nervous now that I'm returning the gesture...but...maybe it's a bit cute. _I admitted to myself, moving a hand to run through Deidara's hair as we kissed. He wrapped his arms around me, his lips moving against my own as the stars began to twinkle in the sky, the moon lighting our little love-scene. It was more pleasant than first time, the two of us comfort with our feelings and moving in sync with one another. No-it wasn't just better, it was perfect. I felt his lips part, allowing me to deepen the kiss, our hearts racing as our bodies pushed together.

I didn't break the kiss until I had to, panting from having my lips locked for so long. _I shouldn't enjoy myself so much. _I smiled, looking into his soft blue eyes. _You really do take my breath away, Deidara...if you keep this up, I'll forget to breath altogether. _I thought, but didn't tell him.

For awhile we sat there, like two thieves who had just escaped from the police. He had stolen my heart, and I his, and we sat calmly, taking comfort in the fact that our feelings were mutual and our fears of rejection had been dissolved.

"Hey, Let's go up to my room." I suggested with a grin.

"Yeah." Deidara agreed with a smile, which slowly fell into a confused look. "But...it's night time."

"Yes, Deidara, your powers of observation are astonishing." I looked at him, puzzled.

"Doesn't the camp lock the door at night...?" He asked, hoping I would laugh at him and assure him he was wrong.

"Oh..." I paused, the two of us sitting in the grass and staring at the offending, new white door. "I guess we should have thought about that before hand."

"Yeah, well, I'm glad I blew you up the first time you stupid door." Deidara stuck his tongue out.

The two of us laughed together until our sides were splitting, our laughs resonating off every star in the jet black sky. There wasn't anything particularly funny, but I guess both of us were just too giddy to take anything seriously. It was a balmy summer night, the two of us locked outside of our camp, and yet, we had never felt more accepted before.

A/N: It's been too long since I last updated! Well, here it is, the two of them are finally together :3. The next chapter will be Sasori POV again...or maybe I'll weasel in a quick chapter about Deidara's perspective... Anyway, please tell me what you think. :)


	15. Understanding: Deidara's Journal

Chapter 15, Understanding

[Deidara's Journal]

I could have stayed outside with him forever, looking into those cool brown eyes of his for an eternity. His every touch sent shivers down my spine, and his lips against might felt _electric, _yeah. My heart jumped like the explosion of a bomb, and yet at the same time I felt more peace than I had in weeks. He laughed out loud when we released we couldn't get back in, wrapping his arm around my shoulder as we both burst into a fit of chuckles. It was a flood of emotions-everything I had felt for the past few weeks, pouring out into the night. My worry and my fears, my love and my anxiety. Everything.

After a few moments the two of us calmed down, yeah, and realized the very real possibility that we might not be able to get back inside."We could throw rocks at someone's window." I suggested.

"Brilliant idea, Deidara." Master rolled his eyes with a chuckle. "Whose window would we toss rocks at?"

It had been a rhetorical question, but I thought about it anyway. "Room 127 is Tobi's room, but he doesn't have any windows..." I paused. Was I seriously thinking about asking that orange-faced dim-wit for help? _Oh god, I'm not starting to think of that kid as my friend, am I? _I panicked for a moment before I heard a heavy thud. Looking over, I saw Master Sasori scavenging through the grass for more rocks.

"I thought you didn't like my idea..." I blinked, watching him retrieve a few stones.

"I didn't, but I don't like being locked out." Impatient as always, he chucked another rock at a random window.

"We could just sit out here all night." I suggested.

Master Sasori blushed, "Yeah, you want to stay out here all night? That's fine, but you'll have to keep my entertained..." He smirked, leaning closer to me. My face turned red, my mouth betraying me as I fumbled around for the right words.

Master Sasori moved forward slightly, about to kiss me again, before the voice of that harlot Konan interrupted us. "Oh Romeo, Romeo, where art thou Romeo-or should I say, Romeo_**s**__._" Konan stuck her head out her window, smiling down at us. "Did you throw a rock at my window so I could watch you two love birds kiss, or was that just a happy accident?" She smirked, her light blue eyes looking darker by the eerie moonlight. Out of all the windows master could have it, it had to be _hers_. I grimaced, and Master Sasori must have seen it because he elbowed me in the ribs before walking closer to the window.

"I'm sorry to bother you this late at night, Konan," He began, calling up to her.

"It's not that late." She replied with a grin. "I was just doing some origami."

_Yeah, I'm sure it doesn't seem that late to a street-walker like you, lady of the night! _I thought, fuming at the fact that I had to ask her for help. _But...wait, maybe I should be nicer to her now, yeah. After all, Master Sasori is __**my boyfriend**__, it's not like there's anything she can do to get between us...Since she lost, I guess I should try and be friendly with her, yeah. _I thinking the world boyfriend made my heart skip a beat. _My boyfriend... _I thought again, looking over at his starlit profile.

"Well, I'm glad I didn't awake you from your slumber-" Master started again,

"Slumber? I thought we were doing Romeo and Juliet, not sleeping beauty." She chuckled.

_He's my Romeo...hands off... _I thought, reminding myself that I just decided to be nice to her.

Master gave a small laugh, "How about this then? _Rapunzel, Rapunzel,_ let down your hair... and help us get inside because we've been locked out."

She laughed, nodding, "So, you two go locked out? Alright, the new door probably uses a key (which I don't have), but I can get the back door unlocked from the inside. Go wait there and I'll open it for you." The blue haired teenager said as she retreated back into her room like a succubus back into the realm of night.

_Wait, I already said I would stop with the boyfriend-stealing metaphors; she's helping us after all, yeah. _I thought as I visualized the bag of explosives I had left in my room and wished I had brought them with me. _I'd teach that door whose boss for the second time… _

The two of us creeped around the back of the antique camp, Konan welcoming us back inside in her barely-there shear pink mini night gown. _It's not like she knew we were going to ask for her help this late at night, but the fact that she's wearing so little clothing still ticks me off somehow, yeah. I guess I must be the jealous type... _I thought, but told the aqua haired teenager, "Thanks for your help, yeah."

"No problem." She smiled, "Better get to your rooms; you wouldn't want a teacher finding you roaming the halls at this hour."

We nodded, taking her advice. Master Sasori walked me to my room and kissed me goodnight. _Tomorrow will be our first day as a couple... I still can't believe it...we're finally dating! _I thought, flopping down on my bed and falling asleep within minutes. My head had been so cluttered with thoughts and my heart had been pounding so fast all day, what I really needed was a good night's rest, yeah.

I slept in a bit the next day so I made sure to get dressed as quick as possible and threw my hair in a quick ponytail, rushing as I applied my usual eyeliner and hurried to meet up with my new boyfriend. "You're late." Master Sasori glared when I sat next to him, his brown eyes sharp. There was something comforting about his stare, something totally familiar about it that assured me our friendship wouldn't change just because we were dating. He was still the same impatient guy I fell in love with, just as temperamental and short tempered as always.

"Your fault for keeping me up all night." I told him with a smirk.

"Woah! Did I just hear that right?" Ino gasped, shaking Shikamaru as if she actually expected that living-doorstop of a teenager to respond. "So, you guys aren't just dating, but you're also...?" She asked, looking excited.

I wasn't sure whether it was the prospect of BL or juicy gossip that got the blond so hyped up, but I was quick to swat away the misunderstanding (though, I admit to blushing while I corrected her). "Nothing like that! We just got locked out, is all."  
"Oh... that's _so_ not as interesting...! But still, you guys are going out now, right? Congrats! You make a super cute couple!"

"I'm happy for you two." Sakura smiled, "Ino's right, you make a sweet couple... I'll see you guys later." The pink haired girl got up and threw away her trash after only saying a few words. Even though I didn't know her as well as Master Sasori I could tell there was something different about her.

_That's right, I heard her confess to Master Sasori before I did yesterday...she must still be upset over getting rejected... but she's a friend of Master Sasori's, so I should go talk to her... _I thought, beginning to stand up before Master Sasori grabbed my arm and tugged me back in my seat. I looked over at him perplexed, but Ino explained his actions for me.

"Just give her some time. Sakura still wants to be friends with you guys, and she's a pretty tough chick, but she's only human. She's not going to act all hunky-dory like nothing happened the day after getting turned down. Right now, what she needs is some time alone, that's all." The bimbo-esque girl reasoned, and for once made perfect sense. I nodded obediently, yeah, and Master Sasori agreed with her.

"I'm surprised, she told you about that?" He asked her.

Ino waved a hand dismissively and said, "Naw, but me and Sakura have known each other for years... I can just sort of tell these things."

"Interesting... so, sometimes it's best not to console a person, even when they're in apparent distress?" I jumped at the sound of Sai's voice, the freaky poltergeist of a kid having sat next to me without me even noticing.

"It varies based on the situation." Ino explained, "And on the person."

"Don't give him too much information." I sighed, "The guy can't even hold a normal conversation... you think he'll be able to tell the difference between when to help someone and when not to?"

"For someone with such a limited intellect, you seem rather condescending today, Deidara. Is it because you spent the night having your ego stroked?" Sai grinned at me.

"If that's some sort of play on words, screw off." I told him mildly. Sai has an odd why of interacting with other people, but by that point I was getting used to his constant onslaught of vulgar jokes and fake sentiments. "If you want to learn more about human emotions, just keep it up and I'll show you an amazing display of what anger looks like."

He ignored my threat and continued talking undeterred. "Congratulations on your new relationship." He said, a little to my surprise. For Sai, it was a pretty normal thing to say. Master Sasori and I thanked him, and I smiled a little bit to myself at the sound of the word relationship (I was still so happy about it!). "You don't need to thank me," Sai continued, "you two will be a wonderful set of test subjects for me to learn more about relationships."

"Of course, your unwholesome ulterior motive shines through." I rolled my eyes at him. "If you want to see what a relationship's like, why don't you just date Ino and learn for yourself."

"Are you implying I'm easy, Deidara?" Ino snapped but me and Master Sasori chuckled a little.

"I can't be in a relationship if I don't have emotions." Sai told us flatly. "I'll just continue to observe yours... So, which one of you is on top and which is on bottom?"

"Sai... one more word out of you and I'll make sure that smug face of yours is blown into oblivion, yeah!" I threatened.

"My, you always get mad so easily…" Master Sasori remarked, reaching over and brushing a lock of my hair behind my ear. I jumped, my ruby-haired boyfriend only smiling back at me.

We continued chattering on for a bit before classes started, Master Sasori, Sai, and I walking to our period one pencil work class together. Konan greeted us when we entered the classroom, sitting down on Master Sasori's free side and twirling her yellow pencil around as she spoke to him.

"Are you afraid she's prettier than you?" Sai asked without looking up from the picture he was drawing. He said it plainly, as if it would be perfectly normal and expectable if I was genuinely worried over something so ridiculous. I snorted in response, telling him to buzz off without any pretty words to cover my irritation. I expected Sai to point out that my response was more exaggerated than necessary, but the pallid boy remained silent, the scrape of his pencil against the paper and the sound of Master Sasori and Konan laughing together the only noise for a few quiet seconds. I reached over a hand to smack him upside the head but he caught my wrist, looking over at me with one of his happy-masks. "Yes, Deidara?"

I jerked my hand away, saying, "Uh... you just seemed preoccupied, yeah."

"Hm. Yes, that was a fake smile. And here I thought maybe you were just venting some of your simple-minded aggression on me." Sai went back to drawing, but explained himself in a way that was so upfront it was almost hard to understand. Who would have thought a guy without emotions would be so hard to understand?

"Well, dumbass, what're you thinking about? You have to tell me now, yeah." I pressed.

"I thought having a boyfriend would make you calmer. On the contrary, it's made you more vexing." Sai replied, "I wonder why human emotions work like that? Maybe I should pick up a few books on psychology…"

"Is something wrong, you two?" Konan looked over at us, her glossy lips forming a smile.

"Deidara, you haven't even started your picture." Master Sasori looked over at my blank page and rolled his eyes. I was surprised to see that he had gotten so much work done on his own page despite having been laughing with Konan all the while. "Don't you know how to do it?" He asked with a smirk, leaning over and grabbing my hand. "Just move your pencil like this…" He told me, his breath warm on my ear, "and then press **harder**…" His fingers intertwined with mine, my heart leaping out of my chest as I sprang up, Master Sasori stepping back and letting go of me.

"Uh, I have to go!" I blushed, exiting the classroom and rushing to the bathroom. I splashed some cold water in my face, hoping to counter act the fiery blush working its way across my face. _Master Sasori just likes getting me all flustered, yeah! _I thought, running a hand through my long blond hair. _My heart just can't take this…If he keeps whispering things like that to me in the middle of class… _

Sai, who had followed me silently to the bathroom, stood at the sink next to me, watching me with those corpse-like black eyes of his. His always-phony voice sounded slightly intrigued as he asked me, "Is that all it takes to get you hard?"

"Shut up Sai! I'm not!" I gave him a shove, blinking the water droplets from my eyelashes. "Oh, damn, my eyeliner's gonna run!" With more important matters at hand than Sai and his nasty insults, began to fish through my pockets for my pitch-black stick of makeup.

I wonder what he looked like when he spoke next. I didn't see his expression, too busy with making sure I was indeed more attractive than Konan, but if I had looked up at that moment, I wonder what I would have seen…his usual eerily fake smile, plastered on his face like thick white clown makeup… or would he have showed a different side in that brief moment? All I can say is that his voice sounded the same as always, though less mock-sweet than when he nagged at me. "I think I should go look for Sakura." He said, weighing his words without any emphasis.

"What?" I looked over at him in confusion, almost dropping my eyeliner.

"Sasori won't look for her because it would be awkward so soon after he rejected her. You're the boyfriend of the boy she liked, which may also make her uncomfortable, so I seem to be the only candidate to search for her." He explained without hinting towards any emotions.

I shook my head, "I thought we said we'd let her figure things out on her own, yeah?"

"I read in a book that-" Sai tried to say before I cut him off.

"Alright, alright, but I'm not letting an emotional brick-wall like you try to console a girl with a broken-heart. We'll go together, yeah?" I let out an exasperated sigh, "Why couldn't I just spend a peaceful day with my boyfriend? At least Tobi isn't here…" I pushed the door open, the two off us setting out to find Master Sasori's dejected friend. _I don't know her all that well, but if she's Master Sasori's friend, so I should help her, right? Either way, I don't think anyone deserves having Sai try and console them... He'll do more harm than good on his own. _I reasoned, unaware of how wicked the woman I had left alone with my boyfriend truly was. I wouldn't discover until later that Konan was already working us into the intricate web of her lies.

A/N: Ah, I might be going away to a summer art camp this year...I can only hope that my stay will be as eventful as Sasori and Deidara's adventures!


	16. Friendship: Sakura's Diary

Chapter 16, Friendship

[Sakura's Diary]

I wasn't trying to be rebellious when I skipped drawing class. I didn't have intentions that grand; I had just become lost in thought, and honestly, I wasn't really concerned about class in the first place. Out of all the things on my mind, improving my drawing skills was the absolute last. My father's the owner of the camp, so it wasn't like I would get in trouble, after all. So instead of being a proper young lady and going to class, I sat on the roof of the camp and looked out at the sky with a melancholy sigh.

_I'm not sad or anything. _I convinced myself, remembering my first childhood crush. _This is nearly as bad as when I fell for Sasuke… At least we'll still be able to stay friends. Like Ino would say, there are more fish in the sea! I just have to be patient and wait to meet the guy of my dreams… I mean, it's not like he's just going to pop up right in front of me… _

"Sakura." At the sound of another person's voice I jumped, nearly falling off of the roof. I would have, if not for the fact that Sai had grabbed my arm and pulled me back from the ledge. "It seems I was correct, Deidara, see? She was going to jump off the roof and kill herself."

"She wasn't killing herself, you idiot. Your freaky face scared her, yeah." Deidara stood behind Sai, rolling his eyes at the socially-ignorant teenager.

"Deidara's right, Sai! I wasn't trying to kill myself!" I pulled my arm away from him, "I was just clearing my head… **What're you two doing here**?"

Sai tried to explain, but was quickly cut off by Deidara, "I read in a book that-"

"Not that again, urgh! You weren't in class and we just wanted to see how you were doing." Deidara told me. "Besides, I'm more of a sculptor than a pencil-work specialist; it doesn't matter if I skip a drawing class or two." Deidara sat down on the roof, looking out across the sky peacefully. "I can understand why you'd like it up here, yeah, the view's great…It would be prefect to shoot some fireworks off of…"

"Fireworks?" I blinked.

"I think he's a attempting to create a comfortable environment by avoiding the topic of your depression and hoping that you'll address the issue when you're comfortable." Sai said, putting a hand to his chin. "Then again, I didn't think he was smart enough to come up with such a complex plan."

"Yeah, well, I can't do that if you point it out! This is why I said you shouldn't come alone! I might not be _'smart enough to come up with a complex plan'_," He mimicked Sai's voice, making it higher and more obnoxious, "but I'm a hell of a lot smarter than you when it comes to people, yeah!"

I giggled slightly. The two were like a comedy team, Sai the perpetual "straight man" and Deidara the easily frustrated "funny man". _They went through all this trouble to make sure I was alright… Deidara's really a nice person, even if he gets irritated easily. It looks like you've found yourself a keeper, Sasori… I'm happy for you. _I thought as I watched them happily.

"Hey, why are you laughing?" Deidara asked.

"Well, we're doing something right if she's laughing, aren't we?" Sai looked over at him.

My reply was to step over and sit next to Deidara, Sai sitting down after me. I shifted my ankles slightly, wrapping my arms around my knees as I looked back on the incident only a few days prior when I had dragged a begrudging Sasori to the roof and helped him figure out how to deal with his feelings. _And now his boyfriend's here talking to me about my feelings. I guess everything's cyclical, huh? As they say, 'what goes around comes around'. _I thought, running a hand through my hair.

"Sakura," Sai looked over at me, his expression unreadable.

"Yeah, Sai?" I asked, expecting him to offer me some meaningful advise or something of the like.

"You shouldn't sit like that. I can see your panties." He told me bluntly.

"You ass!" I swung my fist forward without thinking, about to hit Sai right in his insensitive mouth. He stumbled back on his hands, losing his grasp on the roof tiles and slipping towards the ledge. "Idiot!" My bawled fist turned into an open hand in a blink second, wrapping around the collar of his shirt and pulling him back on to the roof.

"I'm an idiot? You're the barbarian that was going to punch me off the roof." He told me apathetically, fixing his disheveled collar disinterestedly.

"Sai, you don't come to cheer a girl up, point out that her underwear are showing, and then call her a barbarian. In fact, I'm pretty sure those are all the things you're _**not**_ supposed to do to do when consoling someone."

"It didn't say not to in the books I read." Sai countered.

"I'm pretty sure even those stupid books of yours assume the reader has the common sense to figure that part out on their own!" Deidara gestured with his hands as he scolded at Sai, as animated as ever.

"Well, I almost fell off the roof when you first showed up, and you caught me… and now it's my fault you almost fell, and I saved you… so why don't we call it even?" I suggested with a smile, holding my hand out to him for a truce. He stared back at the gesture uncertainly; I think he knew what to do in the situation, but was paralyzed in an awkward moment of wondering how to apply his knowledge. _I don't think anyone's ever reached out to him like this before... _I thought, reading his almost indecipherable expression. I parted my lips slightly, about to urge him on, but he beat me to the punch and grasped my hand firmly. A new phony-as-ever smile was plastered on his face (but maybe... I'd like to think there was a little sincerity behind it). His grip was firm (he probably learned how to shake hands from those books he reads, it's always polite to give a strong handshake), but his skin was icy to the touch.

"Alright, Sakura, we're even." Sai smiled.

"_Even_? We came here to cheer her up, we shouldn't be even with anyone..." Deidara roled his eyes.

We sat a few minutes longer, nothing but the whistling breeze and the faint but cheerful chirp of birds in the distance. Even from the roof I heard the faint buzz of the camp's old bell, signaling that the first block had ended. I exhaled, feeling as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. "Well come on, you hooligans. We can't ditch class all day, right? Keep this up and I just might report you to my father!" I joked, standing up and stretching my arms towards the vast blue sky.

Deidara smiled and stood next to me, "Alright. Master Sasori is probably worried." He chuckled, "No, I should rephrase that. He's probably just getting impaitent because I've been gone for so long."

Deidara was the first one down the latter back into the camp. I followed after him, pausing when I was half way down and looking up at Sai. He was waiting for me to step down so he could enter after me, the bright blue sky forming a brilliant backdrop to his pale figure. "Hey, Sai, how did you know I was upset? Was it that obvious?"

"It was." Sai confirmed. "Your smile was fake."

"Yeah, yours too." I replied, jumping off the later and landing back on the hard wooden floor next to Deidara.

My situation wasn't perfect, but I couldn't say it was bad, either. I had good friends, and I made even more thanks to Sasori. In the end, everything would work out.

* * *

_A/N_: So, I have to admit, this story is _nothing_ like going to a real summer art camp. I took an interview for a summer art school a few days ago, and it's all so formal; nothing like the cute, quaint little camp I image Sakura's dad owning! It all sounds so much more serious than I imaged! Well, I started writing this story 2 years ago (damn, it really doesn't seem like it's been that long!), so I guess it makes sense that it's so different from reality XD.

Next chapter: more about Konan's intentions are revealed!

Please review and tell me what you think! Sorry for the short chap!


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